"Requiem for a Dream"

Requiem for a Dream (2000): 8/10

Poster (c) Artisan Entertainment

In today’s society of Hollywood crap, where teenagers eagerly await the next mindless drivel-fest starring whatever C-list actors the studios can find, it’s safe to say that the majority of teenagers don’t see movies that could be considered important. I don’t even thing Fahrenheit 9/11 could be considered and exception-if more teenagers had seen it, the box office would have gone through the roof. But a movie that pertains to young people even more than Fahrenheit is 2000’s Requiem for a Dream. While some teenagers do care about the mistakes of foreign policy of the Bush administration, drug use and abuse is much more accessible to teenagers than Iraq. Much like another Michael Moore documentary, Bowling for Columbine, Requiem should be required viewing for high schools around the country. It would be a lot more effective than the DARE programs that are instigated in schools for keeping people off drugs for life, and if any were on drugs, they wouldn’t be for much longer.

Requiem centers around four connected characters-Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn), her son Harry (Jared Leto), his girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly), and Harry’s friend and connection Tyrone (Marlon Wayans). Sara, having been widowed, rarely gets visits, except when Harry comes to pawn her beloved TV for drug money. All she wants is a prolonged visit from her son, the best seat outside her apartment, and to watch Tappy Tibbons (Christopher McDonald) give her advice on dieting. She gets a call from a television producer, telling her that she is going to be on television. She finds a red dress that she wore to Harry’s graduation, and tries to diet to fit into it. Sara becomes so desperate that she starts using diet pills to lose weight. It helps her slim down, but soon she becomes addicted.

Meanwhile, Harry and Tyrone have a plan to get enough drugs for life and have enough money to live comfortably. However, Tyrone is arrested (for no reason at all, it seems), and Harry has to use the money to get him out. Harry’s arm becomes infected by all of the heroin he uses, and Marion, almost being a nihilist, starts to do anything for more drugs. What a cheerful movie.

There is no drug use in Requiem. Characters talk about drugs, we see them, but they’re never actually used. Instead of using repeated shots of characters doing drugs, director/co-writer Darren Aronofsky uses quick cuts to see the drugs being prepared, some sound effects, the drug being taken, and pupils dilating. It’s the rapidness of the repetition that Aronofsky uses that gets the characters’ actions into your head, that makes you want to cry out for them to stop doing what they’re doing. Then you realize that you can’t help them, and that’s probably the saddest part of the movie, but it also proves Aronofsky as a talented director. His debut work Pi is a very good movie, with style and story, but Requiem blows it out of the water. Aronofsky takes a novel once thought to be unfilmable (much like Kubrick with Lolita and Cronenberg with Naked Lunch and proves that, with talent, any movie can be filmed. It also shows that Aronofsky can soon become the next Kubrick or Cronenberg. Add to that the saving grace of the movie clocking in at a brief 102 minutes. Requiem could have easily been an overblown 150 minute wanna-be epic. Aronofsky’s choice of shots convey the overall mood, especially whenever we see the women sitting outside of the apartment. They all just wait.

Not having seen Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, I can’t judge Burstyn’s performance against what is supposedly her best work (for which she won an Oscar), but I will anyway. Burstyn deserves awards here for her desperate, paranoid, and altogether spooky portrayal of Sara Goldfarb. Her constant hope of appearing on television is her only reason for living (which she does say in the movie), and she does an outstanding job. It may very well be one of the best female acting jobs in the history of cinema (ranking up there with Shelley Duvall in The Shining-watch it again to see what I mean). Leto, probably best known for his small role in Fight Club, does a great job, as does Connelly, and Marlon Wayans surprises here. He isn’t the comic relief here, he puts in a truthful acting job.

After all this praising, I almost regret that I have to point this out. The only way we could have maximum sympathy for these characters as they make their bad decisions is to get to know and understand these characters. However, the movie starts out with almost no development for any of the four characters, and as we learn more about them as the movie progresses, it means almost nothing, as we don’t see their lives before the movie began. If we know nothing about these characters when they all begin their final plunge, and we take the plunge with them, and we learn things during the plunge, how is that supposed to gather sympathy for the characters?

Granted, that’s not saying that the movie isn’t powerful. It shows how drugs ruin lives, but from almost an objective point of view. There are also other themes interspliced. Sara only watches a certain infomercial. The commercial basically has no value, but Sara runs her life by that one program, showing how Sara, an average American citizen, will do anything to watch her, as Homer Simpson says, “100% grade-A bullplop.” Aronofsky’s disturbing view of Hubert Selby, Jr.’s novel, and the world, is terrifying. It’s definitely not for everyone, but everyone should see it. It’s a harrowing plunge-and objective plunge-into, basically, the bowels of hell.

Not Rated (language, violence, sexuality, depictions of addiction)

Review Date: September 1, 2004