One of the most recognizable and influential films about substance abuse in cinema history is Darren Aronofsky’s (Black Swan, The Wrestler) revolutionary cult classic Requiem for a Dream. While this movie certainly is not for everyone, it ages very well. Much like films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Fight Club, this one deserves a second chance for those who might have dismissed it after a first watch. This is especially true in today’s times, when drug abuse is as rampant as it is, with too many people dying because what they are purchasing and inserting into their bodies is often laced with substances unbeknownst to them.

Set in present-day Coney Island, our story revolves around four characters. Harry (Jared Leto  – Dallas Buyers Club, Panic Room) is the lead, as he has the most direct connections with the other three. Harry is an emancipated, jobless, heroin-addicted man in his early 20s whose priority is achieving his next high, even if that means wheeling the television of his mother, Sara (Ellen Burstyn (The Exorcist, The Last Picture Show), on a rolling cart down the middle of the street that goes from her apartment to the local pawn shop. He woos her with the promise of a plan to get enough money to buy it (and so much more) back soon. Whether that plan is the truth or a fabrication matters little. That television is going with him, one way or another.

Sara’s addiction is to food and television, particularly to sugar and a game show that allows audience members to be featured and win prizes. She’s a gullible person who gets misled on a junk phone call into thinking she will be a guest on the game show she watches religiously. Already plenty slim, Sara obsesses over fitting into her favorite red dress. Her battle between wanting to look glamorous on the telephone show versus her midnight cravings leads her to a trip to the doctor, where she is hastily and carelessly prescribed diet pills to help her lose unwanted weight. However, rather than helping her lose weight, the drugs distort Sara’s reality, and she starts acting bizarrely. She attempts to address this probably by stopping consumption and taking more.

Harry’s best friend, Tyronne (Marlon Wayans – Scary Movie, Air), is also hooked on drugs, though not quite to the same extent. Perhaps, a better way to put it is that Tyronne is more keenly aware of the acute use of drugs and, while lacking the necessary resources to overcome his addiction, understands the ever-increasing dangers, both near and far. He sees Harry at the mercy of heroin and knows he is headed down that same path. Without a reliable source of income, Harry and Tyrone hatch a plan to purchase heroin and then resell it at a higher price than they bought it for. Part of this is to afford their habit, but part of it is to get as far away from their dead-end lives as possible.

Marion (Jennifer Connelly – A Beautiful Mind, Top Gun: Maverick),  Harry’s girlfriend, is equally hooked on drugs. Marion’s physical beauty as a sex symbol to many men allows her to earn the money to feed her addiction in ways that Harry and Tyrone cannot. Her steadier stream of income allows her and Harry, at times, to avoid the burden of knowing how they’ll pay for their next high. However, the means to acquire money and drugs does not mean that she feels any more secure or content than her partner. Connelly permeates her character with equal parts vulnerability and sensuality as we watch her stare blankly into the bathroom mirror, wondering what her life has become while desperately needing her next fix.

I struggled most with the movie’s sequencing. The breaks between one scene and the next lack continuity, though I understand that this was what Aronofsky intended. While it felt frustrating, at times, to watch the build-up of a scene between any two characters, only to cut away to the same, repeated fast-motion clips depicting the routines of drug preparation and consumption, both in terms of how rapidly they take effect and how quickly they fade away. Stylistically, how Requiem for a Dream was shot could be its own course in filmmaking school. Aronofsky (with only Pi as a prior director credit) is committed to this technique, but doesn’t always hit the landing in how it fits with his telling of the story. Again, this was purposeful, but the cutaways took away from a film with too many disconnected scenes. The descent into the pure madness of the third act parallels movies such as Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now or Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange.

Ultimately, I am glad that I watched this movie for a second time. The star-studded cast (three of the four actors have won Oscars in their careers) and an, at the time, aspiring director looking for a great film to jolt his career was worth the rewatch alone. When I first saw Requiem for a Dream more than a decade and a half ago, I was more looking to be entertained than to see a deep character study of drug addiction. Knowing more about addiction on my second watch, I better understood the anticipation for and the achievement of a high, as well as the withdrawal effect and despair associated with scrambling to score again, all the while knowing that your actions are good for neither the mind nor the body, but not having the capacity or the desire to say no. While better movies about addiction exist, many lack Aronofsky’s ambition and storytelling expertise.

Plot 8/10
Character Development 8.5/10
Character Chemistry 9/10
Acting 8.5/10
Screenplay 6.5/10
Directing 8/10
Cinematography 8.5/10
Sound 9/10
Hook and Reel 7/10
Universal Relevance 8/10
81%

B

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