Requiem For A Dream by Darren Aronofsky tells the stories of the widowed Sara Goldfarb, her son Harry, his girlfriend, and his best friend as they enter the world of drug addiction. When Sara gets a call from her favorite talk show to be a guest, she prepares for the occasion by trying to lose weight. Her doctor prescribes her speed as a weight-loss supplement and she soon spirals into psychosis. Harry and his friend Tyrone, along with Harry's girlfriend, Marion, try to earn extra cash by selling heroin. Despite original intentions, they fall prey to the drug and go to extremes to make ends meet. The film has been praised for its artistic and raw depiction of drug abuse but has also faced backlash for being too self consciously dark and harrowing. 

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One review describes the film as a "downer picturesque" that accurately portrayed the craving and depravity of a person dealing with (or succumbing to) addiction. The reviewer comments on Jared Leto's performance as Harry and how in American Psycho he had his head cut off, in Fight Club he had his face rearranged, but in Requiem For A Dream, he has his life mutilated. 

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The cinematography of the film is one of the strongest points. Mixed in throughout the story are close-up shots of heroin being injected into the bloodstream, pills being taken, and marijuana being smoked. Critics say that these shots glamorize drug use, however, this review made a great point at comparing it to the highs and lows of drug use. They describe the scenes as "edited so tightly and seamlessly, make the moment so beautiful but so fleeting, as is the case with drugs. The sequences are almost like a drug, making you crave for more of them, a fix which you get, whenever the characters get their own fix in the film." After these short, beautiful shots we are taken back to the main storyline which shows the four characters at their worst where they end up in the crossfire of gunfights, selling their bodies for one more hit, and falling deep into psychosis. 

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Another strong point is that it paints drug use in a different light than we typically see, something that Elvis Mitchell wrote for his New York Times review. It focuses more on the ritual of getting high, than the actual high itself. One scene, in particular, is when Harry, Tyrone, and Marion invite some friends over to do drugs. The scene is sped up so that what actually took a few hours of getting high zips by in seconds and we see the characters surrounded by nothingness which explains why their lives are so empty when they aren't using. The most depressing scenes are when they are dry and struggling to find more and make the scenes feel so much longer than they are, something that is very realistic to drug addiction.

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The review that gave the film a 1 out of 10 stated that we all are aware that drug use is bad and should be avoided and we don't need a movie to tell us this. However, saying this is like putting elementary school kids in a room with a D.A.R.E coordinator and telling them not to drugs. It seems effective, but the real prevention is from the real, raw stuff. Of course, we know that drugs are bad, but seeing characters who are so relatable and truly believe that they are pushing their lives forward and using without the intention of becoming addicted and then viewing as their lives unravel and they end up worse than they started is something that sticks with the viewer. The reviewer says that the film does nothing to explain why real people do drugs, but it actually shows how most users get into their addiction - we think that we are doing ourselves a favor or finding a temporary fix and that we can stop anytime, but as we can see, the drug takes over and we lose all sense of ourselves. Harry, for example, only becomes concerned when he sees his mother's decline all the while he is using heroin and putting himself in harm's way. 

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This is a film that will stay with you forever. The film begins with characters that are so relatable - a woman who is obsessed with body image and obtaining a lifelong dream of becoming famous, a standard run of the mill guy who is in a picturesque relationship, a beautiful young woman from a solid family with ambition, and a young boy trapped inside the body of a man who is seeking the approval of his mother - and throws them into a lifestyle of addiction and hope for a better future, one that they will achieve through any means necessary. It takes these characters which the viewer relates with and plays on very normal fears of ending up in a psychiatric ward with too much care and no control of your own life, fears of physical harm and detriment, fears of being forced to sell your body, and the fear of losing yourself to leave the viewer afraid that any vice could uproot their entire life.