Requiem for a Dream

2000

Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Ellen Burstyn, Marlon Wayans

This film should pretty much put you off the idea of ever taking drugs....

A young couple, Harry (Leto) and Marion (Connelly) set up a drug dealing business and their friend (Wayans) and like most things in life, starts off pretty perfect and the money is rolling in. Meanwhile, Harry's mother Sara (Burstyn) has been left out in the cold with not much company apart from the television that she craves so much to be on one day. She recieves a call one day that she has been picked to be on a game show and this spurs her on to lose weight. She begins taking diet pills to help her....and they work....until they start to become an addiction. Harry and Marion's business takes a turn for the worse aswell and they have to resort to horrendous measures to get their next hit.

It is grim..it is to put it bluntly absolutly hellish but it is essential viewing. The camera angles are engulfing and on more than one occasion i felt sick and dizzy and my heart began to beat faster than normal.......only because of the film....it is quite an experience. 

Leto and Connelly are a fantastic pair and i do wonder why they both don't get more work. They transform themselves into the roles and Leto especially is very very thin by the end and makes for uncomfortable viewing.

Burstyn is heartbreaking as the mother, Sara. On more than one occasion, i cried for her...

I don't personally get why people find it over rated.....it is gritty and it is raw and i think it was a film that needed to be made and should be seen by everyone.........it is not a positive film but you can take the positive fact away from it that you will be very unlikely to go near any drugs after watching it.

10/10