The ultimate addiction movie

Rating: 8/10 (5 April 2017)

"Requiem for a Dream" is an American 100-minute film from 2000 and probably still the most known work by director Darren Aronofsky, who also worked on adapting Hubert Selby Jr.'s novel for the screen here, actually with the late Selby himself. The cast includes Ellen Burstyn, already an Oscar winner at that point, the super stunning Jennifer Connelly, briefly before her Oscar win, and Jared Leto, a recent Oscar winner, so acting talent is certainly enough in here. Still this is a film that is really a lot more about the story and the overall picture than about individual performances, even if Burstyn managed to get nominated again, which was her most recent nomination at the Oscars, maybe even her final. I find it pretty shocking though that the movie did not get any nominations for other cast members (Leto and Connelly would not have been undeserving), for the direction, for the script, also for the make-up and for the truly memorable soundtrack. It is without a doubt one of the very best films from the first year of the new millennium and besides Gladiator it is also probably the most known from that year.
There are so many excellent aspects about the film it's tough to decide with which to start first. Maybe Burstyn's performance, who is certainly one of the best portrayals of loneliness and delusion I have ever seen. The whole red-dress story-line is extremely heartbreaking and her one scene with Leto is a definite contender for best-acted scene of the year and probably also the main reason why she was nominated for an Oscar. I'd be honestly very surprised if I end up liking Roberts (the winner) more than Burstyn. The main theme is a piece of brilliance and not only utterly catchy, but also very fitting to the story in terms of the contents. I just used the word "heartbreaking" and this is pretty much what can be used to describe the fate of each and every character in here. Their addictions to whatever they are addicted to is destroying their lives. The four central characters lose their dignity, their limbs, their sanity, their friends, their businesses, their freedom and a lot more because of how they cannot get away from their drugs. So they lose basically everything except their lives eventually. All the final shots from the characters in their moments of biggest agony are really memorable of course, but I like to mention the one with Connelly's character especially as we see her lying down after this fateful night and we see that it's not Leto's character in her arms, but that all her love is for her drug now which is the movie at its most depressing. And if you see the very final scene with the television appearance and mother and son being reunited as something positive only because Burstyn's character does and she is somewhat happy in her own fictitious right, that's up to you of course.
All in all, I think no matter from which perspective you see this film, it is a true piece of art. I also think it is a really important film because honestly I could not think of a better anti-drug and anti-addiction film than this one here. Is there anything wrong with it? One needs to dig very deep to find flaws here. Maybe Wayans' character is a bit of a filler to be honest as his story was basically a poor man's version of Leto's character's story and did not add too much. But it's not bad either and maybe just forgettable because everything else about this film is so outstandingly memorable. A bit on the filler side perhaps. Anyway, if there are still people out there who have not yet seen these slightly over 1.5 hours more than 1.5 decades after they came out, then it's high time. This movie is a must-see and it has aged brilliantly in a way where you really don't want to miss out. That is if you don't mind the very graphic aspect in here when it comes to violence, drug abuse and other stuff that is not too beautiful to watch like vomiting scenes. But it belongs to this film like everything else and just results in more realistic elements overall, which is definitely another reason to give it a thumbs-up. Nothing about this film is for the sake of it. Highly highly recommended. Aronofsky was only around the age of 30 when he made this, his second full feature film and what an achievement for such a young director.