Requiem for a Plot

Rating: Null/10 (17 September 2001)

Like the three young actors who star in it, this is a good looking film and the director has done a great job with what is, in my opinion, an unremarkable storyline. The music video style may seem at odds with the serious message of the film, but I think that this is the only way the director could inject (pun probably intended) some interest into an uninspiring plot. We all know about the dangers of drugs and the comparison between addiction to illegal and prescription drugs is one that has been made plenty of times before so I think that any film about drugs/addiction made these days needs to offer something more.
I don't think that you necessarily have to care about characters in a film, but you at least have to be interested in them. Whilst the mother is a fairly sympathetic character (and fantastically acted), her fate is pretty obvious from the start, so seeing her pop pills soon becomes boring and the other three characters are weak, in particular the girlfriend Marion who is nothing more than a series of cliches. I lost interest in all of them for the middle section of the film and although the sheer brutality of the climax drew me back in, it didn't compensate for the boredom that had gone before - perhaps this is a comment on the boring repetitive nature of addiction, but it doesn't make good cinema, no matter how fancy the editing techniques are.
Comparisons have been made with Trainspotting, which to me is a far better film, not only because the characters are more realistic and interesting, but because its portrayal of drugs is more honest, showing that people take drugs for pleasure and not always end in tragedy. In comparison Requiem comes across like a reactionary education film.