Requiem for a Dream



This psychological thriller drama was released on October 27, 2000. This movie was directed by Darren Aronofsky while the screenplay was written by Darren Aronofsky himself and Hulbert Selby Jr.

The cast includes:

Jenifer Connelly as Marion Silver

Jared Leto as Harry Goldfarb

Ellen Burstyn as Sara Goldfarb

Marlon Wayans as Tyrone C. Love

Christopher McDonald as Tappy Tibbons

Hubert Selby Jr. as Laughing Guard

James Chinlund as Space Oddity

Sean Gullette as Arnold The Shrink

Plot summary:

The opening sequence of the movie shows a boy blackmailing his widow mother that he will sell the stuff from his home if she doesn’t do what he tells her and his mother gives him a locket. Now the present scene is shown where the boy grows up and his name is Harry. The scene shows Harry selling his mother’s television with his friend Tyrone to buy drugs. This depicts that he and his friend are drug addicts. Her mother goes to the same shop where his son sells the television to buy it once again. The shopkeeper asks the lady why she doesn’t send her son to the police for his addiction. She tells him that she has no one except him so she can’t do so.

 

 The lady, too has an addiction to watching a tv show too much. One day she gets a call from a person from the same tv show who tells her that she has been selected to appear in that game show. This makes her overwhelmed with joy. She starts dreaming to appear in the show.  She decides to wear a red dress for the show. She goes to her neighbor to tell her that she has been selected and she will be wearing that red dress for the show. But that dress doesn’t fit her since she has become overweight. Her friend gives her a diet book named “Ten Pounds in ten days” in order to help her lose weight. She works accordingly with the restricted diet for a few days but can’t continue that because of her eating habits. So she plans to meet a doctor who would help her to lose her weight.

 

She tells her doctor that she would have to lose around 20 kilograms of weight. The doctor prescribes her some pills and tells her to take them during her meal. In the next scene, it is shown that Tyrone and Harry are planning to start a legal business by collecting money after selling cocaine. Harry has a girlfriend whose name is Marion. She lives away from her family and she, too is a drug addict. Harry tells her that after earning money from the sold drugs, he will make a designer showroom for her so they can earn, more money.

 

They start selling drugs and as a result, they earn a lot of money. They collect that money in a box. As time flies, they start having better lives. Harry buys a big television for his mother too. With time, the amount of money starts decreasing too because they spend it on many things. One day during drug dealing, Tyrone gets caught by the police and gets locked up in a prison. Harry has to pay a big sum of money to get him back. 

 

After all these incidents, Harry goes to meet his mother Sara where he gets to know that she is taking some medicines regularly which even she doesn’t know what they exactly are. He forbids her from taking them because he knows that they can induce some addiction too. But she tells him that it's nothing but the medicine that will help her lose some weight so that she can go to her favorite show and tell the viewers about her life and her husband. This will make her famous all through the country and she will start making some money too. After that, Harry leaves that place and starts crying looking at the condition of his mother.

 

Now all the money that they had made is spent. They don’t even have enough money to buy the drug so that they can sell them. Looking at the situation Harry asks his girlfriend Marion to get intimate with her psychiatrist and ask for a sum of two hundred dollars. After that, they will be able to restart their business.  Marion keeps on rejecting but finally, Harry convinces her to do so. She gets into a physical relationship with her psychiatrist Arnold and as a result, she gets paid a sum of two hundred dollars. Harry goes with Tyrone to buy the drugs with that money. But it is so crowded that people start hurting each other physically. And gun firing starts there too. This makes the scene so chaotic that they have to come back without receiving the drugs.

 

On the other hand, Sara is rampantly losing her weight. Although she has lost her weight, she has also got addicted to the medicine. As a result, she has started hallucinating scenes. To avoid them, she starts taking higher doses of those medicines rather than consulting the doctors. She even hallucinates that she has reached the show and the host has been asking her questions.

 

When Marion gets to know that Harry and Tyrone didn’t receive any drugs that day, she gets mad. Marion and Harry get into a fight. Finally, Harry assures Marion that he knows about another drug dealer named Tim. But when he calls Tim, he says that he wants a girl in exchange for the drugs. After that, Harry cuts the call and decides to go to Florida to get the drugs that are farther from his place. On the other hand, Marion is not getting drugs and that is making her sick. So she decides to call Tim by herself. She cuts the call first but next time she talks to him and asks for his address. She goes to the address and gets into a physical relationship with him. Tim gets impressed with her and invites her to a party too.

 

On the other hand, Harry and Tyrone have reached Florida. But a wound starts appearing on Harry’s hand due to multiple injections taken. This gets worse day by day and hence Tyrone takes him to the hospital. The doctor understands that it is a case of drug addiction and hence calls the police. The police take them to the police station.

 

On the other hand, Sara has not been invited to the show yet. She gets so lost in her hallucinations that she sees her refrigerator walking toward her. Sara runs from the apartment and gets into a train. There she talks with the passengers in such a weird way that they understand that she is not doing well. So they take her to the hospital where she receives so many harsh shock treatments.

 

Harry on the next hand is suffering from immense pain in his arm in prison. So he is taken to the hospital. Tyron is made to work very hard in prison which gets him to mental stress. Tyrone starts crying looking at the condition of Harry. Now Harry calls Marion that he will return back soon and even tells her not to leave him. When Marion asks him if he can come today, Harry starts crying.

 

All the treatments done to her do no work on Sara. So the doctors decide to do shock treatment for her. In the next scene, it is shown that Marion has reached the party. And a lot of gang members are seen at that sex party. Here these people ask her to do different sexual acts.

 

Now different scenes are parallelly shown in the movie. In one scene, it is shown that the shock treatment worsens the conditions of Sara. In the next scene, Harry is seen lying on the hospital bed with his arm cut. In the other scene, Tyrone is seen to be so depressed and energyless. While in the next scene, Marion arrives at her home with a huge sum of money lying on her couch after getting sexually used. Sara is still hallucinating herself on the tv show while Harry is hopelessly remembering his and Marion’s dream of becoming a successful businessman. The movie depicts how they ruin each of their lives due to addiction.


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