Sad Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (1 August 2006)

One of the best recent movies I have seen: its pacing and style completely blends in with the whole story. What has been achieved is that we get to feel like the characters in the film. We go from a fairly ideal time where drugs enhance feelings (called Summer) to a downfall (Fall) and complete misery (Winter) when everybody becomes dependent on drugs to produce certain good feelings and escape reality. Harry (Jared Leto) ends up in North Carolina with an arm amputated due to an infection from frequent heroin intake. His friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) ends up in a colony where he forced to work in jail. His girlfriend Marion (Jeniffer Connolly) ends up prostituting herself to get some drugs and his mother Sara (Ellen Burstyn) ends up in a psychiatric hospital fed forcibly to treat her drug-induced anorexia (as she wanted to lose weight). The main theme is exemplified by the scene of Harry running to Marion on the pier but not attaining her and in the process falling. In a sense it shows how concentrating on your dream and going to it can cause you to fall if you are ready to do anything to attain it.