An American Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (16 October 2011)

No question that Requiem For A Dream,which stars Ellen Burstyn,Jared Leto,Jennifer Connelly, and Marlon Wayans, is an American cinema masterpiece.It is the ultimate film about drugs and its effects in a human being's body and soul. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Hubert Selby, Jr.The film depicts different forms of addiction, leading to the characters' imprisonment in a world of delusion and reckless desperation that is subsequently overtaken and devastated by reality.The film charts three seasons in the lives of Sara Goldfarb,her son Harry,Harry's girlfriend Marion Silver, and Harry's friend Tyrone C. Love.
The story begins in summer; Sara Goldfarb, an elderly widow living alone in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, spends her time watching infomercials hosted by Tappy Tibbons. After a phone call announces that she will be invited to be a participant on a game show, she becomes obsessed with regaining the youthful appearance she possesses in a photograph from Harry's graduation, her proudest moment. In order to fit into her old red dress, the favorite of her deceased husband Seymour, she begins taking a regimen of prescription weight-loss amphetamine pills throughout the day and a sedative at night. Despite Harry's warnings about amphetamine addiction, she passionately insists that the chance to be on television has given her a reason to live. When her invitation does not arrive over the fall, she increases her dosage but begins suffering from amphetamine psychosis and having delusions of reference, hallucinating that she is the principal subject of the game show and that her refrigerator is a menacing, living monster.
Harry is a heroin addict; together with fellow addicts Tyrone and Marion, he enters the illegal drug trade around Coney Island in an attempt to realize their dreams. With the money they make over the summer, Harry and Marion hope to open a fashion store for Marion's designs, while Tyrone dreams of making his mother proud by escaping the street. However, at the beginning of fall, Tyrone is caught in the middle of a drug gang assassination, and Harry must use most of their money to post bail. Increasing drug-related violence and arrests begin making it hard to obtain drugs, throwing Harry, Tyrone, and Marion into a state of deprivation. Growing more desperate, Harry convinces Marion to have sex with her psychiatrist in exchange for money, causing a rift in the relationship. Meanwhile, Harry's arm is becoming infected from unsanitary injection techniques.
As Sara's sanity unravels, she takes the subway to visit the television studio in Manhattan. The secretary at the studio calls a hospital and Sara is involuntarily committed to a psychiatric ward where she undergoes unsuccessful medicative treatment, followed by electro convulsive therapy. Harry and Tyrone set out for Florida to obtain drugs, but Harry's increasingly infected arm forces them to visit a hospital in South Carolina, where they are arrested for skipping bail. Tyrone must deal with hard labor, racist prison guards and drug withdrawal, as Harry is taken to a prison hospital to have his arm amputated. Harry has a recurring dream of Marion waiting for him at a pier at Coney Island, but awakens and realizes that he is alone in jail with just one arm. Back in New York, Marion meets with a pimp "Little John", who gives her drugs in exchange for sex and puts her in sex shows at his apartment suite to provide for her drug habit.
Lost in misery, each character curls into a fetal position. In Sara's dream, she wins the game show's grand prize and meets Harry there. In her fantasy, Harry is a successful businessman and engaged to Marion. Sara and Harry hug and say how much they love one another through the cheers of the crowd and the glowing stage lights.
No doubt,this is one of the best films ever made in Hollywood.It examines how drugs affects the very being of the each person as explored in the main characters of the film.Although this is far from a traditional film that intends to entertain the viewer,it nevertheless presents its theme in its most powerful way possible.Aside from that,the performances of the actors/actresses are powerful especially Burstyn,who no less deserves her Oscar nomination.