I NEED TO TALK ABOUT STAY
Stay (2005) has a 26% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Now, I can typically understand where people come from when they dislike something I love, but in this case I feel like critics wrote it off because they simply did not get it, or just didn't care enough to even ATTEMPT to get it.
I've seen people note frustration that "it was all a dream" and therefor "none of it mattered" which is the most closed minded flippant bs istg 😭
Like, I get that the whole "it was all a dream" thing is often used in lazy writing in a way that serves no purpose to the plot or themes, but with Stay in particular, that could not be further from the truth. Everything has reason and is laid out so expertly that the ending reveal is the whole point and, indeed, what elevates the movie from "good but weird" to "genuine masterpiece".
It's a movie that trusts and respects its audience. Trust that the viewer will use even a few braincells to look beyond the surface imagery for deeper meaning, and respect in the way it doesn't hold ur hand NOR does it go the overly pretentious route of total abstraction.
Again, typically with poorly rated movies, I can find some way to relate to the nay sayers. This is not one of those times. I'm so confused.... I have to wonder if it has to do with the year it came out?
The 90s-2000s were rife with dark mind-fuck movies and, while Stay is absolutely stand out, you could conceivably lump it together with films like Butterfly Effect and The Jacket which came out just 1-2 years prior. Oversaturated the market for a movie like this I suppose?
Maybe the critics simply got bored of this format and were primed to write off any film that felt similar? And in the age of the internet, once those critic reviews come in, it takes a lot more than it otherwise would for general audiences to subscribe.
I imagine seeing such low critic ratings would lead to less people being willing to watch Stay the first place, even less so with an open mind.
Anyway. Concluding statement. The injustice of it all. Yadda yadda. Stay is a good movie, goddamnit.
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