Brilliant, but ultimately unsatisfying

Rating: Null/10 (8 September 2003)

This movie has been highly recommended to me by many people, and it seems that most of the comments have been superlative...so I finally checked it out (the unrated version, of course).
This is one of, if not THE, most visually interesting movie I have ever seen, and with one of the most haunting scores to go with it, the film has a kind of hypnotic grandeur. And Ellen Burstyn's performance was absolutely stellar, not to mention how she put herself so out there, so vulnerable; again, one of the best I've ever seen. And all of the actors were fantastic.
Ultimately to me the movie fails, especially as it frenetically descends into the final whirlpool of misery. I hadn't realized until I watched the special features that the film is based on a Hubert Selby novel. I have the same criticism for this film that I did for an adaptation of Selby's "Last Exit to Brooklyn;" that the story's unflinching look at the most tormented human misery has absolutely no dramatic tension whatsoever. You watch it for the same reasons that people stop at car accidents; a voyeuristic fascination with other people's misery and death. I remember thinking as I watched Selby's interview on the DVD that suffering without heroism tells us nothing, and there is nothing remotely heroic about any of Selby's characters, ever. Not that there should have been any sugar-coated happy ending, but the sort of nihilistic meaninglessness that you're left with leaves no empathy for the characters, and ultimately no connection to the film.
Watch it for the visuals, the music, the performances...Aranofsky is a genius. I just wish he'd chose more interesting source material.