Addiction hurts

Rating: 6/10 (7 December 2000)

The problem that anti-drug films face is the difficult balance between sensationalizing their subject and ethically engaging the audience. This was a beautiful horror film, but the characters didn't engage me. I knew that doom awaited all them, and I wanted them to find a way out, but I didn't really care. The visuals were shocking and provocative. A husband and wife sitting behind us left when they showed the arm. But they wouldn't have left if they had cared what happened. I understand that Aronofsky is showing the inevitable emptiness that results from long term drug addiction, but why make a movie that's only purpose is to show that drugs are bad? The first half of the film was much more playful, with the charcters imaginings, with Sara's hope of making it on TV, but as soon as I knew there was no hope, that nothing new and creative was going to happen, I lost interest. It creates martyrs out of its characters, which coupled with Jared Leto, Marlon Wayons, and Jennifer Connelly's aesthetic beauty - sensationalizes drug use. My friends left the theater saying, "That was a great movie..." and we walked into the bar across the street, and no one really had much to say about it other than it was really cool how the pupil dilated.