Requiem for a Dream

I had never seen this movie in it's entirety before and had only caught bits and pieces, but you really have to see it from beginning to end to truly appreciate it. Instantly I recognized and remembered that score that is so iconic and widely used. The visuals, music, and innovative use of rapid cuts are only some of the things that make this film amazing. The use of plot and characters is fearless as they show how much addiction, of all kinds, can ensnare even the seemingly "normal" people and drag them down to a level of depravity, desperation, and desolation. This is something that is rarely seen because it doesn't have much commercial appeal and causes extremely deep emotions and reactions.

One thing I found interesting is that while it never glorified drug use and showed what it can do to people it didn't take it to the extreme of destroying everyone around you, it just so happened that everyone around the main character(s) were deeply involved in their own addictions. The way drugs were not the only addiction the characters had nor the most influential one was deep and intriguing. The mother Sarah went from being addicted to television to being addicted to pills; however both were simply ways of escaping her insufferable loneliness. At the same time ironically her son was starting to get over his addiction, to a small degree, by using it as a business and making money to feed his other addiction, trying to make money and money equals happiness. Here is where the son begins to rise above his drug addiction in fulfillment of his other addiction while his mother begins to slip out of her television addiction into her drug one. If the two simply had one longer conversation they might have been able to help each other. If Harold had actually brought his girlfriend over and had dinner with his mother maybe they could have saved each other...but this isn't that kind of movie.

That is what we expect and what we want because as much as we love seeing people downward spiral we also want to see them rise above it, whether alone or with help. Addiction tends to be used as an escape but it is only an escape from an outer hell leading to a worse inner one. Every character in this film has their own dream or goal and by resorting to bad means of getting it they end up perverting their original dream until it is so bad they get what they want and realize what they have done. The mother and son end up in similar states, even though they took different paths of the direct and indirect. I would say I don't think the mother is as much to blame for her predicament because she didn't know what the pills were when she started taking them, but when you think about it none of them "really" knew what they were getting into when they first started most likely.

I can honestly say I can't think of any other movie that truly has no silver lining or glimpse of hope at all and that is impressive and remarkable. From a writer's point of view it is hard to write something like that. To have characters that come to a point where there is absolutely nothing left for them and there doesn't seem to be any lower they can go. This movie is the epitome of downward spiraling and hitting rock bottom in the most brilliant and beautiful way imaginable.