Requiem for a Dream (2000) Review

 

Requiem for a Dream (2000)

Requiem for a Dream follows the parallel stories of 4 addicts and the depths their addictions take them.
There are few films I’ve ever seen that as relentlessly harrowing and disturbing as this.It is a story of love and happiness and the longing to connect with others. Each is trying to fill a void within themselves and how that void is filled with their use drugs. This however leaves a void within the present selves, which is where their nightmarish addictions take hold. The end result is a pulsing dive into the human psyche that leaves characters physically, emotionally, and mentally damaged beyond repair. Marion, in her desperation does unspeakable things, once thought beyond forgiveness. Harry’s heroin use ends in the loss of his arm. But it’s Sara, who just wanted to lose weight after being selected for a game show, that is the most hard to watch. A lonely woman, who suffers a complete psychic break, leading to extreme weight loss and electroshock therapy.

It’s hard to look at, something that is bolstered by its’ revolutionary cinematography that assaults the senses, while telling it’s own stories in split screens, quick cuts, and a heart pounding soundtrack that doesn’t let up in intensity from the very start.

For once I’ll admit, Jared Leto was excellent, nailing the idea of a junkie with morals and those he loves enough to want to provide better for them. We also get stellar performances from Marlon Wayans, Ellen Burstyn, and Jennifer Connelly, with each bringing so much respectively. Burstyn and Connelly’s developments are the most shocking, watching Burstyn go down the hole of insanity, while Connelly goes from innocent and loving, to hateful and willing to do whatever for drugs, it’s gut twistingly sad.

Requiem for a Dream, directed excellently by Darren Aronofsky, is a haunting story of addiction and how the end result, is always worse than where you started. But it’s also a cautionary tale about the lengths people go to escape their reality, however fucked up it may be, that when you do escape, you leave a hole behind where you once stood, because you left the present a long time ago.

7.9/10