A haunting film that will stay with me for life

Rating: 9/10 (27 June 2020)

POSITIVES:
1) The four central performances are fantastic; especially Ellen Burstyn. She's superb and completely steals the film. Her one-take monologue to Jared Leto about being old and having nobody that needs her is one of the best scenes of acting I have ever seen
2) The direction and cinematography are so unique. The film is shot in an almost pseudo found footage style that makes it feel completely gritty and realistic. This realism increases the power of the disturbing story
3) The idea to have Ellen Burstyn's character addicted to diet pills was a stroke of genius. It shows that drug addiction isn't all about illegal drugs, it can in fact be about drugs that you can get with ease from a doctor. In fact, the ease in which Burstyn gets these drugs is demonstrated brilliantly by how her doctor never even looks away from his clipboard before prescribing them to her
4) The score is completely epic and iconic
5) None of the characters get happy endings and that is exactly how a film of this nature should end. It demonstrates the havoc that drug addiction causes to people's lives and doesn't glamourise it at all, as a lot of films unfortunately do
NEGATIVES:
1) There are far too many mini montages of heroin taking and pupils dilating. I know you could argue that they are present to show the regularity in which they are taking heroin, but by the end it came across as just beating you too hard over the head with the message that they are drug addicts. Also, heroin should shrink your pupils, not enlarge them
2) The hallucination Ellen Burstyn has where her tv self and the tv host come into her apartment, which is then transformed into a TV set, was a bit too over the top and silly for me