staggering

Rating: 10/10 (3 February 2001)

quite simply this is one of the most amazing films that i have ever seen, it is astonishingly powerful and moving and its take on addiction of all kinds is so well handled that at the end of this film when the titles came up, nobody got up. i mean that nobody got up, we all just sat there stunned with what we have seen. credit must go to some simply stupendous performances but the editing of this film simply had to be seen to be believed.
the final sequence made me remember why it is that i go and see films and why they can be as good and sometimes even better than the book from which they are based.
it would be too easy to say that this is merely a film of drugs, it is not. it is about addiction and it is about dreams. it is what can happen if the dreams take the place of reality so much that people are unable to look around and judge their lives objectively. but more, it is about the death of dreams and the price that some pay to chase an illusory goal.
if you are easily shocked then youre gonna struggle with this film but anybody who has seen trainspotting may think that they know what to expect. they dont, trainspotting was seen as some kind of breakthrough film. this destroys it. one of the greatest films that i have ever seen and i can give it no higher praise then by saying that when i was walking back from the cinema it made me look just a bit differently at not only the adverts screaming for my attention but all the other people walking on the streets.
just breathtaking.