Requiem for a Dream (2000)

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 Amazon.com

Unique Style. Graphic Reality. Good Movie.

This is a really good movie. Ever since my first time seeing it two years ago, I wanted to buy it. It isn't for everybody but it is a classic. I like the way it uses the music in the movie and seems to have a good soundtrack. It uses different camera styles, repetitions, and strong emotional scenes to really make the audience feel way the characters feel. Yes, this is a serious movie even though Marlon Wayans is in it and he gives a good performance. For those who don't know, "requiem" is a song of mourning composed or performed as a memorial, usually for a dead person. The title makes more sense after seeing the movie and knowing this definition. Sometimes the repetition can get to you but it does make you remember it. You may not want to see every part of it but you will not be able to turn away. The final 10-20 minutes are very intense and emotional. I have only seen this movie while in my 20s as I am now and only with people in their 20s so I can't say how an older group of people will see this movie but I think most 20-30 yr olds who like drama and are open to looking at the plight of addicts/dealers will like this movie. December 30, 2008

Fantastic Journey

One of Aronofsky's best movies and certainly a movie that should make its way into anybody's collection. December 24, 2008

"Drugs are bad, mmkay. You shouldn't do drugs, mmkay"

There is a lot of aesthetically pleasing and artistic camera and story work in this movie, but ultimately it comes off as an R-rated after-school special.

It's not a matter of not liking sad stories. There are plenty of tragic tales that peak everyone's interest (Shakespeare anybody?) but this one has such a blunt-force trauma aspect that it's difficult to take it seriously. It says, "here are some people who do drugs and every conceivable absolutely horrid thing that can happen to them amplified."

Perhaps the DVD cover should read, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter." December 19, 2008

Sorry, but this is not a good film

This is one of the most overpraised, overrated films in existence. The director has a gimmicky, show-offy quality to his work- it's all style, little substance. And putting all of your characters through the wringer (in increasingly outrageous and unrealistically heinous ways) seems to me a cheap trick by a filmmaker to reel in emotion from the viewer. That's what Requiem feels like to me: just a calculated human sideshow of unnecessary pain and tortue to gawk at. There's no depth there. Now, usually defenders of Requiem will post in much detail that it's about following your dreams, and so forth. But even if so, it's shallow. You don't truly feel for these characters in any meaningful or sincere way, because the whole movie is just one big rigged game, a trap waiting to work it's manipulative trickery on the audience. November 24, 2008

A Sobering Tale of Addition, Drugs and Broken Dreams

Elegant and melancholy, Requiem is an unsettling drama that is as beautiful visually as its subject matter is depressing.

Each scene is excellently framed and contrasts in lighting, colors and settings allow the film's mood to parallel the highs and lows of the character's circumstances. As their predicament spirals out of control, and they shed the last vestiges of dignity and restraint, the film hurls you into their darkness - a chasm of moral bankruptcy, hopelessness and decrepitude.

Requiem approaches the material with an objectivity that often feels brutally cold, but it handles the characters with a tenderness that makes their already mournful fates emotionally crushing for the viewer. The film does not offer us the comfort of a happy ending, so don't expect to go home smiling.

The movie ultimately ends on a note that is starkly (and unavoidably) anti-drug, but this is not a preachy movie with some hidden moral agenda. The objective here is not to highlight the evils of drug use, but to mourn the human cost, weighed in hopes dashed, lives derailed and loves forsaken. This is after all, a requiem, a rueful ode to dreams buried and lost forever.

The Directors Cut DVD is the only version you should consider buying. It contains the full unedited version with mature material that was removed from the watered down theatrical version. Not a movie you'll watch often, but one that will always resonate when you do. Highly recommended. October 23, 2008

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