Better than Black Swan

Rating: 8/10 (22 February 2019)

For some strange reason, my new year began with me wanting to catch up with movies/music/tv shows that came out when I was a student but I never had time (or a tv) to watch. So obviously, Aronofsky's much talked about movie was on the list.
How I wish someone had warned me about how positively disturbing and gut wrenching this movie is ðŸ˜– At the surface, it seems like a movie on drug abuse, but it really is about the abuse of power. Respectable people like doctors, shrinks, cops and execs are shown to be highly manipulative, exerting their power and getting away with it. And our characters feel the constant need to escape this gritty world of power abuse through their choice of drug (heroin or television), and sadly, become victims of their choices.
Barring the mother, I felt the movie lacked character sketches. Backstories were simply skimmed over for the others. Or maybe Aronofsky intentionally kept it that way to add to the heightened sense of disturbance, and nothing is more disturbing than a lack of closure.
I positively disliked Black Swan, but this movie was something else.