Requiem for a Dream

2000. Dir: Darren Aronofsky. Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans and Christopher McDonald. ●●●●●

How do you begin to review a film like Requiem for a Dream, the seminal drugs movie from Darren Aronofsky? Do you talk about it's intense fluid screenplay, the lead quartets superb performances or the energetic editing?

Let's start by describing the bare bones of the plot. It follows four characters as they move from Summer, when they are optimistic about their chances and futures, toward the Winter when everything has gone horribly wrong. Each of these characters - Harry (Leto), his mother (Burstyn), his girlfriend (Connelly) and his best mate/business partner (Wayans) - downfall can be attributed to their addictions to narcotics. Indeed it's probably true to say their addiction is borne on the desperation to achieve their long terms goals, be it weight loss or opening a boutique.



Yet the film is so much more than this. Because of the structure we begin by seeing the crack and weed the characters take as enhancing their lives. Through the have of the highs Harry is able to rationally decide his future, to plan and assess what actions need to be taken in the long term. He also has an awareness of the dangers of the drugs themselves and how they will turn him, at various points in the film he tries to prevent the others from taking a hit, but in each time he fails. Of course then plans are built on a house of cards, and once one card goes the whole thing swiftly falls apart.

It works because we identify with Harry so much - we want and believe he will succeed. When fate takes it's course we're screaming at him to just walk away from it all, however as with all tragic heroes his character flaw is such that he cannot walk away, but instead buries himself deeper into the quagmire of the situation.

I has so far concentrated on Leto's layered performance, however all of the leads are magnificent. Wayans shows heights he's never hit, or even seemingly tried for, since. Burstyn's role as the TV addict, who gets hooked on diet pills is an incredibly uninhibated performance. And talkign about inhabitions Connelly loses all of hers, and in retrospect won her Oscar for this - not for the saccharine Beautiful Mind inscribed on the statuette.

Aronofsky shows himself as a master of the cinema as he orchestrates the entwinning stories. Although he is expertly aided by Jay Rabinowitz (Affliction, I'm not There) on Editing duties. And of course that haunting, fearsome origainl score by Clint Mansell (performed by the Kronos String Quartet) - it's music so descriptive and powerful it's since become a staple for trailers.

There are flaws in the piece - Wayan's relationship with his mother isn't given the treatment it fully deserves, some of sara Goldfarbs hallucinations seem to be powered more by the need to shock rather than to support the storyline. However this remains the best film to ever capture how drugs will suck you in with good times before spitting you out in the bad.