Difficult, Powerful, Dark, and ***Misunderstood***

Rating: 10/10 (14 April 2006)

There are only a couple other films that convey the reality of severe addiction the way that Requiem for a Dream does. The portrayal is a bit "artsy" and exaggerated; so, it might not be the most "accurate" portrayal, but it makes you *feel* and experience the reality of being a junkie -- more than any film that I have seen.
The film can be hard to watch. It is not a fun movie, but it is in exceptionally when written, directed, and acted movie that is worth experiencing. At times, the film is so dark and caustic that you endure the film as much as watch it, but that is because it is courageous and honest enough to convey the living hell of heroin and speed addiction.
At the beginning of the film, the characters are already messed up, but they still have hopes and dreams -- to some degree, you can still see who they are as people. The film shows the recklessness of the younger characters and the pain and longing of the mother evolving drug abuse into addiction and dependence. As it does, dreams, hope, and self are forgotten. The characters become defined by the consuming need to maintain their habits. In the end, there is not much but loss and ruin. The film is also brave enough not to wrap up everything with a tidy Hollywood ending; it takes you to the point where things have to break, and it gives some resolution, but leaves the specter of what has happened and what is yet to come lingering in the way that it would in real life.
Some people call this movie preachy, but it is not. It is *accurate* which is a pretty big anti-drug statement, but it is not one of those shallow films trying to teach you a lesson. Other people are so put off by the grim reality that this film presents that rather than accepting that addiction can be this awful and realizing these characters are just normal people consumed by addiction, they write the characters off as shallow and the movie as negative, but again, the tone of the movie is not gratuitous or hateful, it sympathetic enough to honestly present the horrors of severe addiction.