More than an anti-drug slogan!!

Rating: Null/10 (18 September 2005)

Drugs are pervasive. This, as well as other themes found in the subtext of this film, seem to have been overlooked in many of the comments I've read here. So I'd like to address a few of them.
Firstly, drugs are pervasive and we are all prone to them. Whether it is the kind you buy on the street, the kind you get from your doctor, the television that usually has pride of place in our homes, the box of chocolate that we mindlessly devour as we sit mesmerized in front of the screen, or sex  viewed pornographically or indulged in physically. The film contrasts the dreams of our innocence with the realities that find us as adults hooked to our different opiates.
When the film opens with the television talk show, and the presenter and audience involved in an overly enthusiastic call-and-response of the show's slogans, I thought immediately of an African-American church meeting viewed by someone on acid. This was without having any prior knowledge that the movie concerned drug addiction. The image was particularly resonant because television has indeed become a new religion with global converts.
And one reason for its unprecedented proselytizing success is the often-fatal epidemic of loneliness that is spreading contagiously throughout the developed, modern world. Loneliness induces the state, not only of being alone, but also of being unknown. Sara Goldfarb clings to her dream of being on television mainly because it marks her out as being special, makes her interesting, makes others want to talk to her and know her where she has long been ignored and dismissed as old and irrelevant  even by her son. In a world of Jerry Springer and reality television, where being on television even as an object of derision, appears to be the ultimate goal, this movie takes on even added significance.
The television itself plays a central role in the film. It has multiple significances. It is Sara's opiate. It finances Harry's addiction. It symbolizes not only the lack of communication and communion between Sarah and Harry, but is also inversely and ironically their main point of contact when Harry comes to visit his mother to steal and sell the television, and later, when he buys her a bigger and better television, from Macy's, no less, to make up for his past behavior.
This lack of communion emerges as the heartbreaking refrain of the film. Marion has money from her parents, but not the love and attention that she craves. She has had lovers with money and compliments, but finds true tenderness only with Harry, a poor junkie who adores her, and who is the only person to believe in and encourage her to pursue her dream of becoming a professional designer. Harry loves his mother and wants her to be happy, but chooses a present that underscores her unhappiness instead of giving her what she really desires  his time and his love. Sara's friends rejoice with her when she is chosen to appear on television. But none of them steps in when she starts spiraling downwards on her diet pills.
Another recurring motif in the film is the irresponsibility and insensitivity of the caregivers of our society. We see three doctors in the film, and all are abominable. The diet specialist never even looks at Sara, far more for examining her or questioning her about her feelings or health. He simply prescribes dangerous drugs that help to increase his net worth. The doctor in the hospital who sees Harry's arm and who obviously recognizes the seriousness of his condition, never makes an attempt to care for Harry. He simply calls the police and washes his hands, like Pontius Pilate. And Marion's therapist has only one desire to see Marion on the couch  spreadeagled for his sexual gratification. That he is always seen coldly consumed with his eating, or that Marion responds to his self-absorption and satisfaction by stabbing him in the hand with her fork, if even only in her mind, is an indication of the director's excellent use of visual storytelling. We also see two male nurses  who restrain and force-feed Sara without an iota of caring or compassion. The only real caregiver in the film is seen at the end  the nurse who tries to comfort Harry after his amputation, which only heightens the pathos and irony, because the caring has come much too late.
And finally, we have the overlooked storyline of Marlon Wayans' character, Tyrone. His misguided desire to improve his situation and lead the rich life, leads him to a life of forced slavery. The director highlights not merely that he ends up in prison. He also underlines the uncaring, neocolonial ethos of a system that denies medical treatment to prisoners in need, and that treats convicts, whatever their physical or mental states, as slave labor. The prisoners are there to work, without pay, to help sustain the system. And there, "niggers from New York" come in for special abuse.
It is extremely sad when Harry, the character that perhaps evolves the most in the film, realizes, too late, that drugs  whether a new television, diet pills or heroin, are not an answer to any problem. What intensifies that pathos is that he actually tries to be there for his mother and girlfriend earlier in the film when he visits his mother to tell her about the television and when he tries to tell Marion that the drugs are not available. But each time, the women are too strung out on their drugs to be able to respond to his feeble attempts.
Anyone who dismisses this film as an anti-drug slogan has missed the important stories that are being told, visually and verbally, as well as the fine and subtle acting by the entire cast led by an obviously talented and complicated director.