powerful anti-drug drama

Rating: Null/10 (11 January 2002)

Anyone even remotely contemplating getting involved with drugs, either legal or illegal, would have second thoughts after seeing `Requiem For a Dream,' a cautionary tale brilliantly directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring the magnificent Ellen Burstyn in an Oscar-nominated performance.
In confronting the issue of drug addiction, Aronosky (who co-wrote the screenplay with Hubert Selby Jr.) has chosen to tell two stories that, although they run along basically parallel tracks for most of the film's duration, do occasionally intersect. That point of intersection is the mother/son relationship between Sara Goldfarb, a lonely widow living in a rundown tenement in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, and her son, Harry, a ne'er do well loser hooked up with a couple of junkies, one of whom is his girlfriend, Marion. Harry and his friends are well on their way to becoming addicts when the movie opens and, until the supply suddenly peters out, the three of them are having the time of their lives. Unfortunately, once they hit hard times, all hell breaks loose and their lives quickly become a downward spiral into withdrawal, crime, prostitution, illness and prison. This is the more conventional side of the screenplay. Where the film really charts new territory is in the concomitant half which is focused on Sara, a well meaning woman whose obsession to lose a few pounds results in her becoming addicted to doctor-prescribed amphetamines. For Sara, this leads to an eventual descent into disorientation, hallucinatory episodes and, eventually, madness.
Some may find Aronosky's blunt directorial style to be overemphatic, hammer-like and off-putting. To approximate the feeling of dislocation caused by the various drugs, the director employs a wide variety of cinematic techniques at his disposal: sped up motion, jarring quick cuts, visual distortion etc. Though it can become a bit much at time, one has to admire the effort to bring the viewer as much into the minds of the characters as is conceivably possible using the resources of filmmaking. The film is both unsparing and unflinching in showing the physical and psychological damage drugs can cause. The last section of the film, though it could be accused of lacking subtlety, nevertheless becomes a harrowing journey into a world filled with confusion, despair and pain.
Burstyn makes Sara a compelling and sympathetic figure from the very start. Alone in her drab room, she watches T.V. all day, dreaming of the time when she will matter to someone again. Burstyn does a brilliant job in showing how, thanks to her increasing addiction, Sara slowly loses her grip on reality and slips over into schizophrenia and madness. And though we are appalled by the anti-social behavior both of her son, Henry, and of his cronies, we come to see even them in three-dimensional terms, especially through Harry's obvious love of his mother and the tenderness that develops in Harry and Marian's relationship. The revelatory moment occurs when Harry realizes that his mother is also addicted to drugs, yet how hollow his words sound as he admonishes her to kick her habit. Even he can do little but break down in tears during the cab ride home and return to his own self-absorbed drug addicted life. (This is the last time we ever see them together as their lives diverge to follow their own paths towards mutual self-destruction).
Special note should be taken of Clint Mansell's subtle and haunting musical score, which brings an air of melancholy uneasiness to this strange world of the drug-addicted mind.
Brilliantly acted and superbly directed, `Requiem For a Dream,' though not always easy to watch, reveals uncompromising truths that cannot be ignored.