Brilliant and Disturbing

Rating: 10/10 (26 November 2000)

I was quiet after seeing this film. I could not begin to form words in my mouth. I have never witnessed anything that had been so fantastically brilliant, and yet so unbelievably shocking. I thought that I would never be shocked after seeing Happiness but I was wrong. The commentary, or better yet, the comparisons between addictions was amazing. This is not a movie about the effects of heroine. It is about something more than that. It made me see things in myself and in my friends that I never would have seen. It felt like I ran right into a brick wall and before hitting my head on the concrete beneath me as I fell backwards I caught a glimpse of who I was. I was not very different from Harry, or his girlfriend, or his mother. Do I do heroine, or am I addicted to diet pills? No, but that does not mean that I too do not suffer from addiction or the ideal of the "American dream."
Images from this movie have stayed with me and I believe they will always be apart of me. I have never been so shocked and disturbed as I was during the scene with Harry's girlfriend at the end of this picture. The way that it was filmed was brilliant. It depicted the horror of what was going on without really showing what was going on. It was done tastefully, or as tastefully as a scene like that could be. Will I ever see this movie again? I don't know. Do I feel that this film is one of the best works of art that I have had the honour of seeing? Yes I do.