REQUIEM FOR A DREAM

Susan Granger’s review of “REQUIEM FOR A DREAM” (Artisan Films)

This nightmarish, brutal fable is a grimly harrowing, if occasionally humorous, cinematic exploration of drug addiction – on two parallel levels. Jared Leto plays a nirvana-seeking Brooklyn punk who’s into street drugs – pot, crack cocaine, heroin – along with his girl-friend, Jennifer Connelly, and buddy, Marlon Wayans. In an incredibly courageous performance, Ellen Burstyn portrays his lonely, widowed Brighton Beach mother who augments her addiction to an Anthony Robbins-like TV self-help guru (Christopher McDonald) with a regimen of prescription diet pills – pastel-colored uppers and downers – as she tries to squeeze into her favorite red dress in time for a potential appearance on her favorite game show. Experimental writer/director Darren Aronofsky (“Pi”) teams with Hubert Selby Jr. to adapt Selby’s controversial 1978 novel with boldly hypnotic visions depicting addled self-destruction. Using split screens, quick cuts, fish-eye lenses, digital effects, montages, even cameras attached to the actors’ bodies, Aronofsky and cinematographer Matthew Libatique concoct a multitude of devices showing legal and illegal chemical abuse. Featuring vivid shots of needles piercing bruised skin, electric shock therapy and an orgy scene, the film delves deep into the desperation and darkness of addiction. Rather than cope with the advertising dilemma posed by the inevitable NC-17 MPAA rating, Artisan Entertainment has released it without a rating. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Requiem for a Dream” is an intensely cerebral but deeply depressing 8. Could Ellen Burstyn win an Oscar? Only if enough Academy members are willing to sit through this savage, excruciating barrage of sounds and images.

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