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I strangely enjoyed writing the last one. So I thought I'd do another review of a film that I just watched.

Requiem for a Dream (2000)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0180093/

Director: Darren Aronofosky
Writer: Hubert Selby Jr, Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly

This tale of several lives ruined by drugs is certainly a depressing one. Burstyn delivers a great performance as Sara Goldfarb, a lonely elderly lady who is reduced to insanity by diet pills, and Leto and Connelly have wonderful chemistry together as Harry (Sara's son) and Marion, a young couple who both slowly fall apart due to drugs. The theme of this movie was obviously the trouble that drugs can cause, but I felt at times it was a little too obvious, and was drilled into the audience's minds with sledgehammer subtlety. There are some subthemes, but they were all overshadowed by the main theme, which is addiction (to drugs, television, sex, etc). Possibly this is a strong enough theme to carry the entire film, but at times the film felt a little empty without anything else to support it.

The direction was fantastic, with several recurring motifs such as fast cuts between different scenes, sharp montages whenever a drug-taking scene occured, repetition of scenes, and hallucinations. These all worked tremendously well, however, like with the plot, it seemed that there were points where these effects were overdone. In my opinion, Requiem would have benefited from a lot more subtlety. The film was also incredibly depressing, although of course there's nothing wrong with that as long as it was the writers' and director's intent.

Acting: 8
Direction: 8
Writing: 6
Effects: 7

Total: 7.3/10