"Stay" *1/2 (out of four): Stylish directorial exercise masquerading as a psychological drama.

There is a trend emerging from this spate of "twist ending" films: they can be judged by how stylishly they are directed. The more straightforward the presentation ("Fight Club", "The Sixth Sense") the better the film. Rod Serling never needed fancy wipes, jumpcuts or special effects. And he got it done in half an hour. Conversely, when a director has to resort to camera trickery, it is clearly to distract the audience from a lacking script. In the case of "Stay", the writer David Benioff concludes a lackluster trifecta ("25th Hour", "Troy") with a stylish but meaningless puzzle masquerading as a psychological drama. Even the title doesn’t make any sense in the end.

Read more on BigPictureBigSound