Stay
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: October 21, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
41
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 29 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
15
Negative:
8
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
58
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
In Stay, the director, Marc Forster, fresh from "Finding Neverland," turns Manhattan into a nightmarish dreamscape and his characters into self-destructive ghosts. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Eventually I gave up on meaning and began instead to study the profuse imagery -- and also the flat characters and anchorless performances. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Forster should be commended for attempting something as daunting as the overreaching Stay, which despite all of its muddled logic and porous reality – or perhaps because of it – forces you to think, a genuine rarity these days. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Yet another variation on the theme of Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." If you've read the short story, you'll see where things are going in no time flat; if you haven't and want to be surprised, don't look it up. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
With its flashy, pretentious visual effects, this is really a 98-minute dream sequence--though it's worth recalling that the most effective dream sequences tend to be only a few minutes long. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Stay is all dressed up with no place to go, an eye-popping exercise in lavish style unattached to any discernible content. Read full review
50
PremiereRyan Devlin
A quarter of the way through the film, it’s all just too much. Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
If you're the kind of moviegoer who likes puzzling out the plots of insoluble movies, then by all means rush to see Stay, a great big blurry mess. Read full review
40
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
It's become a tired cliché for characters in "serious" science-fiction movies not to realize they're dead or dying, but Stay as a film doesn't seem to realize that it's dead from the outset, an unconvincing automaton grimly going through the motions. Read full review
40
VarietyTodd McCarthy
An ultra-arty "The Sixth Sense" that deliberately inhibits comprehension of the story until the very end -- and arguably continues to inhibit it even then -- pic features certifiably talented people on both sides of the camera collaborating on a project that probably shouldn't have been undertaken in the first place. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
The final twist does more to unravel what's come before than to tie it all together, making what's come before feel like a cosmopolitan goose chase. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
There's really not much of an audience for this picture. The movie demands that its viewers put the fragmented images and information together like an intellectual jigsaw puzzle, but it never gives those viewers a good reason to do so. Read full review
40
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Forster and Benioff are able craftsmen who apparently thought it might be interesting to seal themselves into a narrative box with no way out. Sorry about that, guys -- I hope it was a growth experience. Read full review
40
Village VoiceRachel Aviv
In Marc Forster's humorless thriller, going insane is an exciting, luxurious affair. People suffer stylishly; depressives are angry and dirty; they make art, carry guns, and live in magnificent houses. Read full review
40
EmpireIan Nathan
The type of movie often described as a fever-dream: weird, offbeat, otherworldly… An experience that also coincides with feeling ill. Read full review
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