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copyright ©1999-2001
DigsMagazine.com.
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flick pick
| Requiem
for a Dream
2000
Directed by: Darren Aronofsky
Written by: Hubert Selby Jr. [novel + screenplay], Darren
Aronofsky [screenplay]
Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon
Wayons
Language: English
Look for it at the video store under:
drama
Watch it when you’re in the mood
for something:
artsy-fartsy,
disturbing,
serious |
The verdict:
 ½/ 5 the rating
system explained
|
Plot synopsis
Sara Goldfarb is a lonely, aging, overweight
widow who spends her days glued in front of the television set, watching
videotapes of her favorite motivational speaker, Tappy Tibbons. Her
twentysomething son Harry is her pride and joy – that is, when he’s
not pawning off her television set, time and time again, to support his
drug addiction. Harry spends his days shooting up and hanging out with
his beautiful, junkie girlfriend Marion, until he and his enterprising
best friend Tyrone decide to get in on the drug-dealing business. The
two buddies start up a nice little venture dealing off the Coney Island
boardwalk, and for awhile, things look good as the money begins to roll
in. At around the same time, Sara receives a phone call informing her
that she’s been selected to appear on a television show. Excited at
the prospect and determined to fit into her beloved red dress on the big
day, Sara promptly seeks out a doctor who’ll prescribe her some diet
pills. As the pounds fly off, Sara discovers that speed is an even
better form of escape than her former addiction, TV. Soon she’s so
addicted to the high that she’s popping uppers and downers
uncontrollably. Meanwhile, Harry and Tyrone lose their supplier and are
fast running out of enough money to support both their heroin habits,
plus Marion’s as well.
Review Requiem
for a Dream left me feeling completely, utterly, drained. The four
main characters are all so hopelessly lost that you feel a little like
you’re getting sucked down into hell right along with them. All of
which is to say that the film is extraordinarily successful at
accomplishing what it sets out to do: depict the harrowing experience of
drug addiction in excruciatingly realistic detail. The acting is so good
it’s almost hard to watch, as each character begins to disintegrate
from a normal-on-the-outside, messed-up-on-the-inside human being into a
walking corpse. Both Ellen Burstyn and Jared Leto, as Harry and Sara
respectively, are 100% believable in their roles, but the real
revelation is Marlon Wayons, who proves that, all prior work to the
contrary, he can actually act. Stylistically, the film is astounding,
employing a dizzying array of dazzling editing and camera tricks, from
nifty disorienting split screens to hyperkinetic time-lapse, to the
rhythmic barrage of exquisitely-shot close-ups that Aronofsky frequently
employs as a transition between scenes. It’s all so surreally
beautiful to watch that despite the ugliness of all that misery and
desperation, you can’t help but keep your eyes glued to the
screen. Requiem for a Dream isn’t an enjoyable movie to watch.
But as the film itself seems to suggest, we, as a culture, are all a
little too dependent on escapism anyway – whether its through drugs,
food, TV or movies. Sometimes you need a good harsh dose of the uglier
sides of reality, and Requiem for a Dream gives you just that,
brilliantly. —reviewed by Y. Sun
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