Requiem For A Dream review

For those who saw director Darren Aronofsky's debut Pi, it is clear that he possesses a warped and harrowing perspective on life. Requiem For A Dream is equally intense, using fast edits, distorted lenses and exaggerated sound effects to convey the sensual assault wrought by drugs.

A discomforting film to watch, Requiem For A Dream provides an original and graphic depiction of the life of an addict. Its indictment of dependency is made more poignant by focusing on the relationship between a mother and son, both of whom find themselves turning to drugs rather than each other to resolve their problems.

Harry Goldfarb (Jared Leto) makes a habit of pawning his mother Sara's (Ellen Burstyn) TV to support his heroin habit. It's an inconvenience she tolerates even though it forces her to occasionally miss the diet infomercial she's obsessed with because, since her beloved husband died, Harry is all she has.

Despite his apparent callousness, Harry loves his mother and longs for her to be happy, but watching her lonely descent within the curtained confines of her Brooklyn apartment is too much to bear. He rarely visits, instead he and his junkie partner Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) hustle from one fix to the next and dream of one day making enough money through dealing to escape their present lives.

With no parental guidance or support Harry is lost. His long time girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly) is a fellow user and also estranged from her parents with the result that both have become as dependent on one another as on drugs.

A phone call to Sara falsely promising the opportunity to appear on TV has her scrambling to try on the red dress her husband once admired. The years have been marked like rings on a tree and no longer able to squeeze into the dress, she goes on a diet while waiting in vain for the letter from the TV people. Doughnuts cascade from the ceiling as she begins hallucinating about food. Desperate, she turns to a doctor who prescribes her 'diet pills'. From that moment her life parallels that of her son's as it spirals downward rapidly in her forlorn quest to lose weight.

What makes Requiem so tragic is that the characters are neither hardened nor unsympathetic, but merely vulnerable and confused. They harbour humble aspirations and long for a happiness only found in nostalgia. The film shows how simple it is to lose control, how circumstances can conspire to overwhelm.

Leto's performance is effectively restrained while Burstyn's disintegration from quiet pensioner to psychotic pill popper is brutally stark and heart wrenching.

Aronofsky is proving himself to be an innovative and bold director. He uses a rich palette of tricks by which to tell his story. Tricks that in less gifted hands would distract, here only enhance Hubert Selby Jr's script.

The issue of drugs is one that Hollywood deals with frequently, but rarely with such verve, style and candour.