Requiem for a Dream

Tonight I watched Requiem for a Dream.

Yeesh.  What a hard film to watch.

I'm not really sure how to react to movies like this. There was some tremendous acting, some great dialogue (clearly the "I'm lonely" monologue was the standout bit), some neat cinematography... but, man, it's hard to watch a film that ends with all the characters' lives destroyed by drugs. And you know, it's the fact that it was drugs that makes it hard for me to appreciate this film as much as I could have. If the underlying message was "we all have dreams, but they often lead to our demise", multiple vehicles could have been chosen to show that. But when you make the whole movie about drugs... well, the whole message is tainted by that.

I don't do drugs; I've never touched drugs; I wouldn't dream of doing it in the future. ...So that message is completely lost on me.

Of course, there were some smaller messages ("basically good people get treated like animals if they are associated with drugs")... but I already had a firm grasp of those points.

All in all, I walk away disappointed.


...And, dammit, I wanted to know what step #3 was.  : )