Requiem for All Our Dreams

Requiem for a Dream

Ellen Burstyn

Jared Leto

Jennifer Connelly

Marlon Wayans

Written and directed by Darren Aronofsky

Based on the novel by Hubert Selby Jr.

Runtime 100 minutes

MPAA NC-17 (no one under seventeen) was rejected by the studio

Whose idea was it to release Requiem for a Dream Thanksgiving week? What a story to put you in the mood for Turkey Day! Three of the addicts, Marion (Connelly), Harry (Leto), and Tyrone (Wayans—in an unexpected performance), scheme and dream about making enough money off drug dealings for Marion to be able to open a business of her own. Meanwhile, Harry's widowed mother, Sarah (Burstyn in the performance of a lifetime, many lifetimes), is addicted to food and television and before our very eyes becomes addicted to diet pills as well.

The film very much belongs with us this holiday season, however, when so many of us let all our addictive and compulsive behaviors get out of control. It belongs with me because I have never reviewed a film for which I have felt more grateful. It is a hard, mean, ugly film about the hard, mean, ugly realities of addiction, which may be the defining condition of our times. It is brilliant, imaginative, and creative in its use of visual effects, it has a script that never loses its drive and interest, and it has a performance by Burstyn that might well serve as a measure for performances on film for generations.

I'm not sure for which dream this film is a requiem, but Sarah's dream of being able to wear on a television quiz show the red dress she wore to Harry's graduation is the most memorable. My one objection to the film is that, although the four stories so smoothly intertwine, only Sarah is fully developed as a human being. Perhaps that is because she is the only one that we see before the addiction takes over her life.

Ironically, it is her son Harry who understands that she has become addicted to diet pills, changing her from a slightly overweight, warm-hearted old dear (making me think of her heart-breaking performance four years ago in The Spitfire Grill) to a teeth-grinding monster in high gear. Sarah herself says that she likes the way she feels under the influence of the pills, and in a wrenching monologue which Burstyn delivers with dry almost droll understatement, she outlines how the pills have filled in the holes in her soul.

But, as the pills in all their jolly colors lose their effect on her, she increases her dosage, and things start to happen. Specifically, her refrigerator starts to threaten her. All too often, filmmakers fall back onto special effects with ludicrous results, but somehow, the refrigerator does what the film needs. All the terror and longing, all of Sarah’s different hungers are caught in the horrific image of the refrigerator.

Although the camera work gets rather artsy at times, it is always purposeful. Split screens show the isolation of characters who are in bed together, and near the end, the televised fantasy for which Sarah yearns and the mundane reality which she yearns to escape become one. Director Aronfsky finds simply perfect, perfectly simple images for the deteriorating mental conditions of the characters. There is one annoying sequence of images that flashes across the screen every time the young addicts use their drug of choice, but eventually, I felt that its repetition was an accurate reflection of the boring reality of their compulsive behavior.

As I've said in other reviews, the most special effect of all is simply a close up of a face. Here we go see a nightmarish gallery of icons of our culture of addiction in Burstyn’s face. But her special effects owe more to the whole being of the actress, body, mind, and soul, than to the garish lights and makeup. Somehow, from the core of her being, she captures Sarah’s (and all addicts’) weirdly active passivity, focusing all her efforts on the easy outs that make all effort meaningless.

It is ironic that the studio, which rejected the rating, is marketing the film specifically for adults only. I'm not sure what the problem is, aside from a brief, horrible sex scene near the end, when we see how the lives of the four main characters unravel. But, just as the sex-filled film (1989) based on Selby's novel Last Exit to Brooklyn came across as anti-sex, so does this film make such a strong case against the use of drugs that it should be required viewing for teenagers.

OK, so I seem to have fallen into the uptown snooty mode that sets up an us/them conflict between viewers and reviewers. After all, I’ve recently poured cold water on Men of Honor and (have I no shame?) pulled the plug on Opie’s version of a Dr. Seuss classic. The truth is, as William Blake told us long ago, that all true poets (and playwrights, novelists, filmmakers, and, most of all, critics) are of the devil’s party. Nobility of thought does not assure artistic greatness, and, for that matter, depravity doesn’t either. When you see this film, however, you see greatness.

The stories and images overlap (what begin as handcuffs around one pair of wrists in a jail turn into restraints in a hospital around other wrists), all driven by the passive activity of addiction. The seedy diet doctor peddles his legal fix in his office, while the junkies on the street fill their illegal prescriptions, and everyone is addicted to the quick fixes of hair dye, diet pills, get-rich-quick drug deals (which, like everything else, go horribly wrong), and absurd info-mercials. According to this film, to be is to be addicted, or as Bob Dylan sang so long ago, “Everybody must get stoned.” Near the beginning, before the horrors set in, when Harry complains that by chaining her television set, his mother may be responsible for his breaking it (as he steals it to pawn to get money for drugs—a compulsive ritual), we get the whole crazy conundrum of addiction, codependency, and denial in a matter of moments.

Requiem is an unrelenting, unrelieved roller-coaster through Hell, and yes, I have groused about films being advertised as "rides." But after this year's 28 Days, with its rosy picture of the other end of addiction (recovery), we need this film and its dreadful vision of abuse, mutilation (addiction eats away at bodies and souls alike), and imprisonment now. And if anyone starts a petition to carve a fifth face on Mt. Rushmore, Ellen Burstyn gets my vote, if, looking back on this film, I can decide which of her faces to commemorate.

Usually, I conclude my film reviews with a link to another perspective on the film. This time, I'm going to go it alone, but as always, reminding you to keep your feet dry and your heart full of the noble thoughts so lacking in the lives of these characters. In case you feel cheated by the lack of a link here, however, let me refer you to website of the Online Film Critics Society, where, as a member, I can post links to my reviews. For every other film, I’ve assigned a “mixed” judgment, but if you look for this one, you’ll see that I’ve given it the highest rating possible. Be thankful, as I am, for this film. Be very thankful.

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