Some *spoilers*. Nothing too deep.

Rating: 7/10 (12 January 2004)

Well, I finally got around to this movie, and overall I thought it was good enough (hardly great/brilliant/superb). An easy enough story; 4 people getting involved with drugs under different circumstances, all hoping to be 'W-I-N-N-E-R-S'. The catch: Nobody wins. The story is actually handled well initially. Everybody's role is established. The hopeful young couple. The friend with a one-track mind. The naive and lonely old woman. Through drugs, all of them get more power. Harry (Leto) and Ty (Wayans) make a lot of money, Sara (Burstyn) has boosted self-esteem & confidence, and Marion (Connelly) simply has control of her life & herself for once (as seen by her handling of the Shrink). The first half of the movie is their HIGH, the second half is their big fall. Harry and Ty lose their money and are mere pawns of the underworld, Marion is under the mercy of the Shrink and Big Tim, while Sara just unravels. It's like a train wreck, but surely the movie is more than that? Or at least I had hoped.
Now, onto the acting/characters. Ellen Burstyn is fantastic as Sara, and you really get to feel for her because you know a little bit about her and what's she's been through, and what she really wants and dreams of being. Leto, Connelly, and Wayans are really good in their roles too, but I just got didn't get enough of them (not in the good sense). Just flat-out weak character development. Harry is a dopey kid with a generally good heart, but we don't get much more than that. Certainly not enough to really sympathize for what he's about to go through. But, Oronosky and Selby do a good job with one scene in particular where Marion is on the pier, clearly symbolic of the only thing pure in Harry's life, if only for a short while. Drugs stand in Harry and Marion's way, but nobody does enough to make that connection evident. Speaking of Marion, again they sort of touch on the fact that she was a victim of abuse (the nightmare, "Hell", drugging up at the sight of her own body, The Shrink, etc.), but you never really know and you're left with nothing to do except move on with the story and in several instances, pretend to care more than you actually do. This is also evident when things go from bad to worse and everyone changes. Ty has even less development, as they briefly go over his relationship with his mother near the beginning and futilely at the end, but it seems all too rushed, and Oronosky and Selby appear to just want to tie up all the loose ends in a neat little bow with his particular fate. Too much focus elsewhere and not enough on good old fashioned character development, which then hurts the plot itself because it IS the characters and not much more.

The directing was original, but almost overbearing at times as I said, the techniques almost getting in the way of the actual performances (I mean, we get it, there's something wrong.). But that's not to say that Oronosky's work wasn't clever or smart, because it was. I just feel that director's style should totally gel with all the actors, as opposed to one taking away from the other. So, Requiem ends up being the train wreck that was expected, but you really only feel for a couple of the passengers, one for the horrific things she puts herself through to get a fix, and the other because you're human and so is she, but a little more misguided than you and I and not fit to be in her son's world. There should be more sympathy towards them, which was what Oronosky/Selby wanted, but I dug down and found nothing.
It's a good movie, but I don't get the rating. As of this review, it's an 8.4 (lots of 10s), but I'd have it closer to an even 7. An earlier poster said that maybe people aren't accustomed or used to the shock of a movie such as this (perhaps the directing style also), which would explain the high marks, and I'd have to agree as there seem to by many young people rating it high as well. Directing overshadows the acting, pure shock was chosen over genuine emotion. I mean really, the decisions by the young people were all by Free Will, none of them ever intending to quit, so how can I feel badly for them compared to Sara? There were some other things such as RFAD dragging at several points, despite the chance it was intentional. As far as a "message", it's not much more than stay away from drugs, simply because everyone other than Burstyn doesn't give you much reason to think otherwise. Entertaining, but I was expecting much more than this. 7/10