Don't do drugs. No, really.

Rating: 7/10 (3 September 2006)

Requiem for a Dream is a staggeringly bleak look into the lives of four interconnected drug addicts living in Brooklyn. The story follows an older Jewish woman, Sara, her son Harry, his friend Tyrone and Harry's girlfriend Marion as they lose their sanity, dignity, bodies and eventually their futures to cocaine, diet pills, and heroin. The plot has been summarized enough here, but suffice it to say that it's one of the grimmest, heaviest films I've seen  and I've seen a fair amount. Requiem plays as an agonizing train wreck that ends without any hope whatsoever for our main characters. This film is full of moments where I wanted to grab the characters and force them to stop their self-destructive behavior. It really is gut-wrenching and is very tough to watch  viewer take caution.
Now that I think about it, Requiem reminds me of the more recent Passion of the Christ. Both are very well shot, edited and produced, but are tough to call entertaining and certainly not the kind of movies you'd pop in on a rainy day. While Requiem for a Dream is very much an anti-drug film, the message I got out of the film is: Your actions have consequences. As I watched the heartbreaking scene near the end, where Sara's two elderly friends sit on a bench outside the hospital and sob after visiting her, I couldn't help but wonder if Aronofsky had people in his own life who were destroyed by drug addiction.
So while I hesitantly recommend Requiem for a Dream, it's not the kind of film I'd care to own, and is certainly not for children or the squeamish. Powerful, brutal, and nightmarish, this film will have you questioning if you drink too much coffee. You may think I'm kidding, but I'm not.