Movie Review

Lina Nguyen
Period 2

Language Arts

Mr.Zavala

November 14, 12

Requiem for a Dream

Requiem for a Dream, directed by Darren Aronofsky is about 4 people that are hooked onto drugs and eventually abuse it. Taking place in Brooklyn, New York., these four characters struggles with their life and with each situation they become addicted to drugs. Starring Ellen Burstyn as Sara, Jared Leto as Harry, Jennifer Connelly as Marrion, and Marlon Wayans as Tyrone, they all develop a drug addiction to either cocaine, heroine, and speed (diet pills). Requiem for a Dream, nominated and as well as won quite a few awards. Most of the awards won were in the “Best Actor” category for Ellen Burstyn. Some other awards this movie won were the Chlotrudis Award as “Best Movie”, The Gloden Trailer Awards as “Best of Show” and many more.

The movie Requiem for a Dream is about four Individuals who struggle with their addiction to drugs. Ellen Burstyn as Sara loves to get her daily dosage of a hit infomercial. She one day gets a call promising that she will appear on the TV show. Suddenly overwhelmed with excitement, in hopes of showing off her son, she decides to wear the same dress she wore to his high school graduation. Not being able to fit it no more because of the weight she gained, she tries to go on a diet. But the “no sugar and grapefruit and coffee” doesn’t sound filling enough for Sara so she decides to go to a doctor to try some diet pills. Because of the need to fit into the dress, Sara soon becomes addicted to the drug in hopes of starring on the infomercial. Harry, Tyrone an Marrion on the other hand as a different type of addiction to drugs. They’re all addicted to heroine and cocaine. All desperate to make a little cash in order to buy drugs, they constantly steal just to buy a small bit of drugs. Hitting rock bottom after a while, everyone all tries to constantly try as hard as they can doing no matter what to get the drug they need in order for them to keep sane.

            Overall, I thought the movie was very good. I really liked all the shots and the editing. The wide variety of shots really helped the viewer to understand what was going on, and same goes for the editing. Especially when one of them was “high” it was as if we were experiencing the hallucinations from the drugs were causing them to us as well. This movie really kept me on the edge of my seat. It was pretty gruesome, since it was a rated R movie, but it was a very educational and taught a good lesson.  Overall, I think I would give this movie a 4.5 out of 5 stars and I say go watch it.