Pretentious tripe.

Rating: Null/10 (31 August 2001)

I keep hearing what an honest and brutal film this is, so here's my refutation. Requiem for a Dream was not a great film, it certainly isn't deserving of it's place, or any other place, on the imdb top 250.
I'll admit, the hyper-edited portrayal of the actually process of injecting heroin was pretty impressive the first time i saw it. When repeated ad nauseum, however, it's just grating. It was like Aronofsky had one clever idea and, deciding he probably wouldn't have another clever idea, decided to reuse it as many times as possible.
Some of the editing and cinematography was interesting, but better suited to a 3 minute long music video than a feature length film. I guess that was just an attempt to keep the audience from realizing that the film lacked a plot or actual characters.
Speaking of the plot, what little plot there was wasn't interesting enough to sustain an entire film. The first hour of the movie is just the same actions repeated over and over again, and the second half is just junkies lives being ruined by their habits. Perhaps it would be more moving or poignant if any of the characters were a little more than paper-thin caricatures without detailed personalities.
I don't recall which term they used on the back of the box, but in describing the "climax," they either used the term "gut wrenching" or "heart wrenching." Again, it may have been so if i actually cared about any of the characters, or believed what was happening on the screen. The screenwriter obviously didn't know anything about the legal process of the united states: you can be arrested for possession of heroin, but not for addiction to it. And the representation of electroconvulsive therapy wasn't just stupid, it was irresponsible. Again, the screenwriter must have just watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and assumed that they still did things that way. Not true.
And finally, i have my gripes with the soundtrack: four bars of music repeated over and over, does not make a soundtrack. Some variety might've been good, or perhaps choosing something more appropriate than dramatic violin chords...
In conclusion, a film, in order to be effective, doesn't necessarily need a plot, but if it lacks a plot, it must have characters. This film did not have characters or a plot. Furthermore, to be effective, a film needs some semblance of truth to it. A film which at first presents itself as a realist film, should at least stick to that, rather than resorting to silly horror movie shock tactics to elicit a response.
Darren Aronofsky is not the next Stanley Kubrick. He's not even the next Ed Wood.