Stunning.

Rating: 10/10 (14 February 2006)

This is one of the most astonishing films I have ever seen. For starters, what a title. Requiem for a Dream, isn't that just the best sounding film title ever? I'll say it again - Requiem for a Dream, with a title like that you know it'll be good. And it is.
Starting in Summer with Harry Goldfarb (A never better Jared Leto) stealing his mother's TV set to satisfy his heroine addiction it sets the scene for four people inextricably tied together in similar events.
Jennifer Connelly plays Marion Silver. Harry's girlfriend who has been brought up in a rich family but yearns to be free, and so flees with Harry and his best friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) as they try to make the big score and makes some money for a great future.
Ellen Burstyn is brilliant a Sarah Goldfarb (Harry's mother). A lonely, old widow fixated upon appearing on television and on a diet so she can fit into her favourite red dress. To satisfy her desire she goes on diet pills, but as she faces more loneliness and fear of dying a nobody, she decides to take her diet into the insane and takes more pills than she is supposed to.
Elsewhere Harry and Ty's drug deal goes sour with the street drying up with no means to buy and no means to get rich. They fall apart, and the midpoint of this film is the key part.
With summer drawing to a close things start to turn bad noticeably, particularly in the scene in which Harry visits his mother. They sit and at first they have general chit-chat about marriage and happiness, but then as Harry realises his mother is on pills, and is grinding her teeth and being quite jittery through their effect, he says:
"Hey ma. You on uppers?" The camera swings inside, from what was once on the light side of the characters face, is now on the dark as the camera (ingeniously by the DA, and quite unnioticably - you must listen to the commentary) switches to show the darkness on the other side of Harry's face... It's quite a simple yet rather good technique, and the motive for the camera swing is quite elementary but the way it is pulled off is something else. Your average film watcher wouldn't have seen the relevance in such a movement, but now some of the motives are understood, thanks to the excellent commentary on the disc, it brings the whole rating of the film soaring. It really is that good, it is made with flair and imagination up there with the greatest of all film-makers, it is superb and original. It also sets the stage for the whole theme of the film, the notion of each person moving forwards as each one tries to hunt for their vision of happiness, but don't realise that by holding onto it so hard they lose their sense of reality and danger follows, and as summer fades into memory, the problems start to appear, and they begin to FALL. How far from their dreams they become is almost unbearable. But this fall makes for totally mesmerising and fantastic viewing pleasure. It is excellent. And the whole rise and fall is marked upon with fantastic skill. The contrasting, before and after is sublime.
Set to the tone of the Kronos String Quartet and some excellent pieces by Clint Mansell this film is backed up by powerful direction which incorporates a souring mood that gets all the more sombre scene by scene.
I can honestly say you won't find much better in the year 2000 and it is in my opinion the best film of the last two decades. Darren Aronofsky shows deep imagination in adapting Hubert Selby Jr's novel, but he makes the film his own, and it is a case of film being better than book. It is a truly harrowing accompaniment of fantastic acting, mind bending direction, shocking imagery, totally great dialogue and moods that have not been more powerfully portrayed in any other film ever. It is a true definer of the genre Drama, and all films of similar character can be judged alongside it. I suggest, beg and implore you to watch it and I tell you with total confidence that this is an absolutely, 100% bona fide marvel of cinematic perfection.
Maybe I went too far, but I feel it. It's totally brilliant, on a great disc to match. If it was free on the NHS then it would be the best ever. :)