Very esoteric.

I went into this movie blind, thinking I had seen it before (with such a generic title as "Stay"), so I had absolutely no idea what I was in store for. At first I thought, okay, this is clearly one of those split personality movies where Sam and Henry are the same person. I became so distracted by all the overt hints the movie was giving me and the weird transitions between scenes and the way the camera would flip back and forth between characters. It wasn't until I finally "let go" (when I realized nothing was making sense) that I truly began to enjoy it.

While I have no idea what most of it meant, I do know that there is a esoteric thread running throughout the film that is difficult to ignore. It provides some of the most compelling elements; for example, the characters who died in the actual car crash -- there is a lot of mystery surrounding their roles in Henry's vision. It seems to me that the film is not only a split-second recreation of events seen through the eyes of a dying man, but also a bit of the afterlife itself. Bob Hoskins's line, "The Buddhists were right...everything is an illusion" is the most telling. Is this just Henry regurgitating something he learned during his life which is passing through the mouth of his father or is it an actual message from beyond? What about the fact that the father was blind in his fantasy and now he can see (only at the point of death, when blood streams down his head)? It is all so strange. The ending, which shows little glimpses of Sam and Lila's "alternate reality" (is it fate?) makes you question the logic and physics of everything that came before it.

It's a wonderful film, but not one to take too literally. It's nice to let go and just let it wash over you.