CNN.com - Entertainment - Just say no to 'Requiem for a Dream'

Director's second effort overdoses in film about drug abuse

By Paul Tatara
CNN.com Reviewer

(CNN) -- "Pi" director Darren Aronofsky's second feature, "Requiem for a Dream," is based on a novel by the patron saint of literary drug abuse, Herbert Selby Jr. You have to wonder, though, why the movie wasn't re-titled "Look, Everybody -- It's Darren Aronofsky!"

Once again, a young director with a wildly overpraised debut film has decided to forgo good taste in favor of advertising his own far-reaching "bravery."

This may well be the most energetically grotesque picture to hit our screens since Oliver Stone apparently lost his mind overfilming "Natural Born Killers" back in 1994. And that's saying something.

Aronofsky simply can't get enough of himself. Thirty seconds after the movie begins, he opts for a pointless split-screen shot. From there on out he lays on a repetitive cavalcade of slow motion, fast motion, more split screens, cameras attached to actors, grainy surveillance images, dissolves, fades to black, fades to white, underwater shots, cameras on the ceiling, cameras on the ground, dream sequences, hallucinations, slowed-down vocal tracks, sped-up vocal tracks, grinding music, electronic blips, etc. You better wear some headgear if you opt to sit through this thing; there's a good chance you'll want to tear your hair out.

There are, of course, actors running around, but Aronofsky can't slow down long enough for anyone to create a decent character. The performers are more like flesh-and-blood effects.

Jared Leto plays Harry, a Coney Island heroin addict whose life -- here's a shock -- is entering a downward spiral. It's an excessively nasty slide, but never fear: Harry will have lots of company before it's all over. He and his best friend, Tyrone (Marlon Wayans), scratch out an existence while trying to rustle up their next fix. When he's feeling good enough to walk out the front door, Harry also drugs it up with his hot girlfriend, Marion (Jennifer Connolly).

Aronofsky inserts the same three-second montage every time someone shoots up -- a syringe, some cotton, a flame, fluid shooting into flesh, a pupil dilating, a relieved sigh. The goal is to make you understand how quickly the high can come and go, that these lost souls live only for that glorious moment. But it's a point that's been made so many times, and in so many other movies, you don't have to be told anymore. The repetitious skin-popping alternates with similar montages of people smoking pot, snorting cocaine and gulping uppers. Nobody ever stops for a light snack.

It quickly becomes apparent that Aronofsky will be pounding away for the duration. Wise viewers (if that's not an oxymoron in this case) will have no choice but to do a Muhammad Ali and fall into the rope-a-dope. The best approach is to just lean back, cover up, and let the director flail away until it's all over.

That's not how movies are supposed to work, by the way. You're supposed to get lost in a film, not steel yourself to endure it.

The subplot is actually the main plot filtered through an old woman's perspective. Ellen Burstyn plays Harry's mom, Sara. To put it mildly, Aronofsky (and Selby, who helped him with the screenplay) isn't kind to Sara. She and her friends are dumb as a pack of mules, cackling in the heat while they misinterpret their existence and rub sun screen on their old-lady noses.

Sara, who initially is addicted only to bad TV, is told in a mysterious phone call that she's been selected to appear on her favorite program. She decides she must lose 20 pounds before she can make her appearance, and an obliging doctor gets her hooked on diet pills.

If you think Harry's got it bad, wait until you get a load of Mom's hallucinations. Burstyn tumbles through 12 or 15 uncharted levels of hell before she's being chased around the kitchen by a saber-toothed refrigerator. Honest.

Aranofsky has a definite knack for teeth-grinding paranoia. After all, "Pi" (1998) is about a man who comes to fear mathematically inclined rabbis.

Burstyn wails, screams, and experiences mind-bending delusions in virtually every one of her scenes. She's a brilliant actress, one of our very best, and it takes guts to do something this deranged. It's just that over-the-top hysterics besmirch her dignity. You get the feeling that even David Lynch, the master of pushing things beyond all reason, would tell her to tone it down. Is it really a step up the actor's ladder to make the transition from mothering a possessed child ("The Exorcist," 1973) to being possessed yourself? Burstyn's performance in "The Last Picture Show" (1971) is vastly more complex and heart-wrenching than this, and she barely raises her voice in the process.

This a difficult movie to review, because many people automatically equate technical dazzle with artistry. Yes, Aranofsky knows what he's doing, but he only deals with human beings when he's run out of trick shots. The only heart he's interested in is one that's stopped by an overdose.

You can get the same vibe, with far more economy and a devastating emotional undercurrent, in any number of Lou Reed records. Skip "Requiem for a Dream," buy Reed's "Street Hassle," and count yourself lucky that you weren't fooled into the theater.

"Requiem for a Dream" could be considered offensive by human beings. Leto has a pus-filled, infected track mark on his arm. Connelly vomits directly into the camera lens. People snort, smoke, and inject anything they can get their hands on. Wayans is shown having sex with his nude girlfriend. A drug dealer gets shot point-blank in the face. And, of course, Burstyn gets snapped at by her refrigerator. In this case, torrents of profanity can be viewed as a welcome relief. Rated NC-17. 102 minutes.