1-800-JUICE!

Friday night my BOYfriend (happy, Morgan?) and I decided to take it easy and watch a movie that I’ve been wanting to watch for quite some time: Requiem for a Dream. Darren Arnofsky, who also directed the movie Pi, did an amazing job in making viewers feel exactly what the character was going through. I was very impressed with the acting, the dialogue, and the creativity of the director.

Requiem for a Dream is a film that tracks four addicts who are connected through family, friendship, and love. Harry (Jared Leto) plays the central character. His mother (Ellen Burstyn), his dealer friend (Marlon Wayans) and his girlfriend (Jennifer Conelly) are connected through him. Each character is addicted to various drugs. These drugs completely consume their lives, ultimately causing failure and despair for each character. Each characters’ quest for satisfaction in life becomes surpassed by their reliance on the drug that ensures them that they’ll “get there”.

My favorite character out of the four was Sara, Harry’s mother. Ellen Burstyn flawlessly played a character driven mad by her growing loneliness and tedious obsessions. After finding out that she has won a spot on the television show she is obsessed with, she makes it her goal to fit into her prized red dress and look just like she did the night of Harry’s graduation. To reach her goal, she becomes dependant on four daily diet pills which give her an antsy and cheerful feeling. Burstyn’s acting skills were showcased as you could tell she really had to step out of her comfort zone to play this character that makes viewers so uncomfortable.

This movie was in no way an easy movie to watch. Arnofsky makes sure viewers feel just an uncomfortable as the characters do. The montages that appear when there is drug use let the viewers know what is going on without having to make it so drawn out. In many scenes, there are flickering lights in the background which seem to get across the feeling of instability and the distorted camera angles are used especially in the scenes where Sara is growing extremely insane. There are just a few of the techniques the director uses to make the audience really feel for the characters.

If you haven't seen it already you definitely should. The entire movie is filmed in a very interesting way. It's a very sever movie that really shows drugs in an extremely unglamourous light, as opposed to many other films.

Liz