The Director Goes for the Shock of Addiction

Rating: 6/10 (14 December 2003)

Requiem for a Dream"- I've been hearing about this film for sometime now. Mostly from my sons who are in their early to mid twenties & their friends. I've also seen it was listed in the top 250 films on IMDb, so I decided I'd better check it out. Was it worth all the hype......well?
Requiem for a Dream," is definitely a film about addictive personalities addicted to drugs, as a matter of fact that is about all it descibes & leaves little room for anything else. The creators of this film want you to know the harrowing consequences & hell of drug addiction. That for all ages, sex, race, addiction is the same, just they go different ways about maintaining their habits. The mother gets hers from the Doctor, portrayed as a insensitive quack who only writes prescription & does not look at the patient (the mother) once during her visits. The girlfriend gets it from her boyfriend & when he can't produce, she sells her body for it. The boyfriend & his buddy, who deal so they can become rich, but end up not even being able to support their habit. Yes, the horror of drug addiction portrayed truthfully, well? Yes mostly, but no also. Sure, all these things can happen as worse case scenario, don't get me wrong here, I'm not advocating drug use for anyone......but. The creators of this film go out of their way to shock the audience, & when it comes down to showing real drug use they cop out. All we get is the same snippet editing over & over again, showing the aftermath, but no actual act of getting high. This film also cops out in dealing with the real problems of buying drugs & dealing, it touches on this subject very lightly. We again get those fast edited snippets when they're dealing. No in-depth showing of our characters dealing with others in real transactions, dodging the police, dodging would be rip off artists, narcs, putting up with all the idiots that come with the territory, nothing. We get a scene where our characters are trying to score on the dock of a grocery store. I had to kind of smile here. The average Joe Junkie, does not go to Super Walmart, on the dock to score his drugs from a Florida Orange truck. Another direct act of sensationalism from the creators of this film. I really believe that the director had in mind to make the Boggey Man portrait of drug addiction with this film, so all you would be drug users & Ice Cream habit users would get scared away from the subject, or just say....cool dude, did you watch that!
Really, if you want to watch films on the subject, there are much better ones out there, that deal with all the aspects of drug use deeply. Some are, "Panic in Needle Park," "Cisco Pike," "Less Than Zero," "The Bad Lieutenant," "Fresh," "Clockers," & the black comedy of "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas." See these films if you really want to see what "THE LIFE," is about.
"Requiem for a Dream," does manage to shock some, no doubt about it, but then again, thats really what it is intended for & not much else.
(room temp)