A moment of happiness can be easily shattered by the sound of screeching tires. You just never know.
Death is unavoidable, and it is bound to catch up with us sooner or later. In one split second, poof, we’re gone. For some it’s sooner than usual. In the movie “Stay,” for Henry Letham (Ryan Gosling), it was sooner.
Henry is involved in a horrible car accident that leaves his mother, father and girlfriend dead at the scene. It is apparent that he is the only survivor.
After the accident, Letham reveals to his psychiatrist Sam Foster (Ewan McGregor) that he plans on committing suicide on his 21st birthday.
McGregor does a great job in clearly portraying the typical psychiatrist. He must be in his 30s, but he dresses like a 60-year-old man. Although, he wears tasteful three-piece suits that accentuate his good looks, the high water pants are not a good look.
It is apparent that Henry is living his life in guilt. He has lost everyone he loves and has concluded to end his own life.
Just think to yourself how you would react if you were the only survivor in a car accident that left all of your closest loved ones dead.
Guilt, shame, denial and remorse are just some of the factors that add to Henry’s unstable mentality.
Henry’s mental health is at a brink. He hears voices and has sporadic episodes portraying his mother and father. Finally, he admits to Sam that he killed his parents, and that is why he was going to hell.
Much like the movie, “Crash,” the story unfolds and finally connects at the end.
A combination of non-conventional angles, colors, scene repetitions, music and finally art make this film aesthetically pleasing.
It is extremely difficult to clearly determine what is real and what is fantasy, especially in the scene where Henry’s head is bleeding profusely in the middle of a busy New York street. That is exactly why this film is so interesting. It dares to question the topic we as a society normally do not want to talk about, death, and secondly, it presents how death can be so unfair.
Life is only here for a short time, and we never know when our time might be up.
Open your eyes and enjoy the beauty that surrounds us every day. Don’t take what you have for granted because some of us never even get enough time to enjoy it all.