Requiem for a Dream - a very sad movie

Warning: Some spoilers within.

Last night I watched Requiem for Dream. I wanted to watch it after reading about it (after having discovered it via the theme music in the Da Vinci Code trailer).

It was a roller coaster of a movie. I had a general idea about what the movie was: the crumbling of 4 lives as their drug addictions become worse and worse. However, I don’t think I was really prepared for it. It’s one thing to read a synopsis of the movie, and another to watch it unfold.

Requiem for a Dream is one of those movies that doesn’t pull any punches. One after another, it slaps you in the face, saying “LOOK! This is what drug addiction is like!” In the beginning of the movie, the four characters are starting to have problems. The mother is lonely and wants to lose weight. Marion (Connelly) isn’t quite sure what she wants, besides to spend time with Harry. Harry and his pal want want to get high, but they quickly move on to wanting to make money from selling drugs.. so they can get high even more often.

Things start to fly downhill from there. The mother becomes addicted to speed as her diet pill, prescribed to her by a doctor. She starts hallucinating, imagining she’s going to be on television, and then everything will be ok.

Harry and his buddy make a ton of money at first, but Harry and Marion quickly blow most of that feeding their drug addiction. The relationship between Harry and Marion quickly decays, particularly when Marion agrees to have sex with an old friend for money.

There aren’t any happy moments in the movie. Most movies introduce problems, and then counter those problems with solutions. Requiem doesn’t. It throws one problem after another, compounding each other, leading to the eventual downfall of all four characters. The movie ends with Marion attending an orgy for more drug money, since drugs are all she can think about anymore; Harry lies in a hospital bed with one of his arms amputated, due to it basically rotting off from repeated injections in the same spot; Sarah, the mother, is placed in a psych ward, after electrotherapy failed to help her; and Tyrone, Harry’s friend, ends up in prison.

Requiem for a Dream was a riveting movie. I wouldn’t say enjoyable - in fact, it was painful to watch for me. It kind of wrenched at my heart over and over. I genuinely felt sorry for all of the characters. I’m still a bit depressed from watching it. It’s not something I’d watch again, if I came across it while channel surfing. It was just too disturbing; I’d even go so far as to say upsetting. However, I’m glad I watched it. It made me see addiction in a different light than I had before. Even though I thought it was really disturbing and depressing, I think a lot of college students (or maybe even high school students) would do well to watch it (with a parent, in regards to high school students). Maybe it’d help steer them clear of drugs. I’ve never had any real inclination to ‘experiment’ with drugs, but after watching Requiem for a Dream, I know I sure as hell won’t be touching them.

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