Requiem for a Dream

Monday 16 April 2012

   Requiem for a Dream is a movie directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Jared Leto and Jennifer Connelly. The movie is based on a novel of Hubert Selby Jr. also called Requiem for a Dream.

   It is a drama that tells the story of four people that were trapped by different kinds of addiction. Three of the characters (Harry, Tyrone and Marion) are addicted to heroin. Sara (Harry’s mother) is addicted to television; at a certain point of the plot the viewer is able to find a parallelism between the addiction of Harry, Tyrone and Marion to heroin and Sara’s addiction. Later in the movie Sara begins to take diet pills, and also becomes addicted to it. As the movie develops, the viewer is taken into a world of addictions and learns how addictions affect your whole life. In the end of the movie we watch the life of all characters falling apart. Each character curls into fetal position, a position that has been observed in drug addicts when they are experiencing withdrawal.

   Some people claim that this movie is a movie about drugs. But, in my opinion this movie isn’t about drugs, it is about how people are not aware of what an addiction is. The definition of addiction is having a continued behaviour despite of its adverse consequences. With this definition of addiction we are able to understand that we can be addicted to anything, and that all addictions are harmful, although some of them act faster than others.

   Ellen Burstyn was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as Sara Goldfarb. She was nominated for several other awards including the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role. The movie also won the Chlodtrudis Award for Best Film, and was nominated for the Chlodtrudis Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Marlon Wayans and Jennifer Connelly also recieved nominations at the Chlotrudis Award.

Diana Barros