Quite the most awful film I have seen in some time........

Rating: 1/10 (22 December 2004)

I had been looking forward to seeing this film for quite some time and after seeing it's high rating here on IMDb, I finally obtained a brand new copy from e bay. Hubert Selby is an astute commentator on the underbelly of American life and I looked forward to seeing his vision made flesh.
This is a personal opinion, but I thought that this film represented the absolute nadir of contemporary film-making.
The direction was unnecessarily showy and looked like something that would pop-up between music videos on MTV. The characters were completely unlikeable, so no matter what happens to them you can't possibly have any empathy or care in the slightest, in fact, at the end when the girl is gang raped and the guy gets the abcess on his arm (particularly unrealistic that, by the way) I was almost glad that these hopeless emptyheaded hunks of humanity had been erased from their fictional existence.
Some reviewers have commented on the performances of the young leads in this film. Well, they're wrong. They were worse than the performances in the Children's Film Foundation (A foundation run in the UK that allows kids to work in the movie industry). The only redeeming aspect of the whole film was Ellen Burstyn's performance, which was powerful and convincing, but dimmed by the ridiculously OTT direction which is more hysterical than a Prodigy music Video.
What else can I say? This is exactly the kind of gen X rubbish that usually comes with an MTV logo slapped on it and is lapped up by moronic so-called nihilists that think that the repeated litotes of the 'getting high' sequence is a powerful shorthand for their desire to escape the reality of their hopeless existences. It's not, it's rubbish.
Anyway, at least it's not all bad; it does suggest that hard drugs might have some use in ridding the planet of vacuous American teenagers.
I will never watch another Darren Aronofsky film as long as I live. Do not waste 2 hours of your life watching this film. Do some drugs and speed-read some Charles Bukowski - it would give you an infinitely better insight into the mind of those addicted to inebriation and it will be a lot more fun.