Requiem for a Dream
So do we really need another movie about heroin? But wait: Darren Aronofsky, who wowed critics and annoyed moviegoers with the frantic, portentous Sundance winner Pi, offers a film that is less about heroin than it is about addiction — the soul-eroding desperation it brings and the lunacy/fantasy that fuels it. There’s plenty of vein popping, too, as we witness the steady decline of each character, played by Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, and Marlon Wayans. (At press time, Aronofsky is still battling the threat of an NC-17 for the film’s graphic depictions of drug’s demoralizing effects.) No doubt about it: This is smelly and tar-black — but the stuff of actors’ dreams (especially when those actors are Jared Leto), and Hollywood vet Ellen Burstyn (The Exorcist) reportedly turns in a performance nothing short of phenomenal as Leto’s pill-popping mother. The film, based on a book of the same name by Hubert Selby (Last Exit to Brooklyn), contains the same kind of kinetic, show-off camerawork that split critics and moviegoers on Aronofsky’s debut — it boasts more cuts than any film, with 2,000-plus. (Oct. 6)This article appears in September 1 • 2000.