IMDB Link
Plot Summary
Amazon.com
Employing shock techniques and sound design in a relentless sensory assault, Requiem for a Dream is about nothing less than the systematic destruction of hope. Based on the novel by Hubert Selby Jr., and adapted by Selby and director Darren Aronofsky, this is undoubtedly one of the most effective films ever made about the experience of drug addiction (both euphoric and nightmarish), and few would deny that Aronofsky, in following his breakthrough film Pi, has pushed the medium to a disturbing extreme, thrusting conventional narrative into a panic zone of traumatized psyches and bodies pushed to the furthest boundaries of chemical tolerance. It's too easy to call this a cautionary tale; it's a guided tour through hell, with Aronofsky as our bold and ruthless host.
The film focuses on a quartet of doomed souls, but it's Ellen Burstyn--in a raw and bravely triumphant performance--who most desperately embodies the downward spiral of drug abuse. As lonely widow Sara Goldfarb, she invests all of her dreams in an absurd self-help TV game show, jolting her bloodstream with diet pills and coffee while her son Harry (Jared Leto) shoots heroin with his best friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) and slumming girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly). They're careening toward madness at varying speeds, and Aronofsky tracks this gloomy process by endlessly repeating the imagery of their deadly routines. Tormented by her dietary regime, Sara even imagines a carnivorous refrigerator in one of the film's most memorable scenes. And yet... does any of this have a point? Is Aronofsky telling us anything that any sane person doesn't already know? Requiem for a Dream is a noteworthy film, but watching it twice would qualify as masochistic behavior. --Jeff Shannon
My Take
In another imdb.com Top 250 selection (#48), Director Darren
Aronofsky (Pi) assembles a finely talented cast and uses some awesome cut scenes to drive home the staggering affects of drugs. In fact, imdb states that most movies contain 600 to 700 cuts, with Requiem for a Dream containing over 2,000.
I have always been a sucker for Jennifer Connelly (when she had b00bies) and Leto and Wayans are very solid. The true star of this movie is Ellen Burstyn, who although nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, was robbed by that no-talent horseface, Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich. Whatever.
Blockbuster doesnt carry the Director's Cut of this film, so you will have to look elsewhere. The scene that tips the scale to unrated is a pretty graphic sex scene near the end where Connelly's character is performing acts with another girl and a device for money, as a group of men cheer. Trust me, it's not as hot as it sounds.
A-Bomb
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Plot Summary
Amazon.com
Employing shock techniques and sound design in a relentless sensory assault, Requiem for a Dream is about nothing less than the systematic destruction of hope. Based on the novel by Hubert Selby Jr., and adapted by Selby and director Darren Aronofsky, this is undoubtedly one of the most effective films ever made about the experience of drug addiction (both euphoric and nightmarish), and few would deny that Aronofsky, in following his breakthrough film Pi, has pushed the medium to a disturbing extreme, thrusting conventional narrative into a panic zone of traumatized psyches and bodies pushed to the furthest boundaries of chemical tolerance. It's too easy to call this a cautionary tale; it's a guided tour through hell, with Aronofsky as our bold and ruthless host.
The film focuses on a quartet of doomed souls, but it's Ellen Burstyn--in a raw and bravely triumphant performance--who most desperately embodies the downward spiral of drug abuse. As lonely widow Sara Goldfarb, she invests all of her dreams in an absurd self-help TV game show, jolting her bloodstream with diet pills and coffee while her son Harry (Jared Leto) shoots heroin with his best friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) and slumming girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly). They're careening toward madness at varying speeds, and Aronofsky tracks this gloomy process by endlessly repeating the imagery of their deadly routines. Tormented by her dietary regime, Sara even imagines a carnivorous refrigerator in one of the film's most memorable scenes. And yet... does any of this have a point? Is Aronofsky telling us anything that any sane person doesn't already know? Requiem for a Dream is a noteworthy film, but watching it twice would qualify as masochistic behavior. --Jeff Shannon
My Take
In another imdb.com Top 250 selection (#48), Director Darren
Aronofsky (Pi) assembles a finely talented cast and uses some awesome cut scenes to drive home the staggering affects of drugs. In fact, imdb states that most movies contain 600 to 700 cuts, with Requiem for a Dream containing over 2,000.
I have always been a sucker for Jennifer Connelly (when she had b00bies) and Leto and Wayans are very solid. The true star of this movie is Ellen Burstyn, who although nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, was robbed by that no-talent horseface, Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich. Whatever.
Blockbuster doesnt carry the Director's Cut of this film, so you will have to look elsewhere. The scene that tips the scale to unrated is a pretty graphic sex scene near the end where Connelly's character is performing acts with another girl and a device for money, as a group of men cheer. Trust me, it's not as hot as it sounds.
A-Bomb
