That film told the story of a reclusive mathematical genius whose obsession with unraveling the mysteries of Pi threaten to erode his sanity. He's not trying to be difficult, he assures me. Never mind that his brazenly bleak adaptation of the 1978 Hubert Selby, Jr., novel details the tragic exploits of a trio of junkies and an aging widow addicted to diet pills. To the director, the drugs are merely symptomatic of a larger cultural crisis. The film is about the lengths people go to escape their reality.
Drugs are one part of the equation, but anything can become an obsession.
Apparently, Requiem 's author concurs. Todd Solondz's Happiness , Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia and Sam Mendes's American Beauty all picture Americans hopelessly alienated from everyone around them. As a nation, these films suggest, we have become victims of our own success, robot consumers blinded by cash and power. Case in point. Meanwhile, Harry's mother Sarah is on a wholly different trip, one which ends at the same dead end.