Requiem For a Dream
Year: | 2001 |
Director: | Darren Aronofsky |
Cast: | Jared Leto, Ellen Burstyn, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans |
Harry (Leto, looking so boyish - he grew ten years before appearing in Panic Room just two years later) and Tyrone (Wayans) are two junkies who decide to peddle to get themselves out of the dumps, and for a while it works. Harry's girlfriend (the ever-stunning Connelly) is a fashion designer with talent.
And his mother Sara (Burstyn, in a very daring role for her calibre, but one she lives up to and shines in) is a lonely widow who watches infomercials, dreaming of fitting into the red dress she wore to Harry's graduation. Things go from bad to worse for all four characters steadily and in little moves you hardly realise before the climax.
We leave each character at rock bottom, and the underlying message of the film isn't really that drugs will ruin your life, but that there's nothing more horrifying that that slide into desperation that they bring. Aronofsky portrays rock bottom with stark terror and vivid colour, never forgetting that everything - love, friendship, family - has been destroyed by drugs.