A film that will not only put you off drugs, but will positively smash your heart into pieces, Requiem for a Dream has a very stylised approach to drug taking and this makes the horrors that the characters suffer all the worse. Sara Goldfarb is an elderly widowed woman living in Brooklyn Beach, New York City. She fills her days watching stupid junk on TV and eating chocolates. One day, an invitation to a game show comes into her life. Wildly excited by this, Sara starts taking appetite suppressants so she can get into her favourite red dress. Her son Harry is concerned that she will become a speed freak after he hears her teeth grinding. With no sight of her appearing on the show, she gives in to amphetamine psychosis. Her fridge is alive. Sara's son Harry is a smackhead along with his girlfriend Marion and friend Tyrone. They get involved in the heroin dealing scene and make a whole stash of money so that each of them can achieve their dreams - a fashion shop for Marion, an escape from the streets for Tyrone. Unfortunately Tyrone gets caught up in a drug war assassination bid and has to be bailed out for a hefty price - using up their savings. The drug scene is going to hell in a hand basket and leaving Marion, Tyrone and Harry in an increasingly hard to score situation. Marion has to have sex with her shrink to get money. Harry develops an abcess in his arm. Meanwhile, Sara goes completely bonkers and shows up at the television show centre in a very dishevelled, incoherent state. The police take her to a mental hospital but interventions such as drug therapy, ECT leave her in a worse state and she goes irrevocably insane. Harry and Tyrone attempt to drive to Florida to get drugs, but Harry's arm is in such bad shape he has to go to hospital. The doctor alerts the police and Harry and Tyrone are carted off to prison. There is a great deal of racism facing Tyrone and Harry has to have his arm chopped off. In NYC, Marion has found business with a pimp who gives her heroin in turn for her appearance in live porn shows. Ellen Burstyn gives an amazing performance as Sara Goldfarb, which she rightly received a lot of award nominations for. She has possibly an even worse time here than in The Exorcist as Regan's mother. The music in the movie is awesome and grows more and more sinister until the end of the movie. The characters are consumed by their cravings for drugs and will do anything to satiate their addictions - jeopardise their health, commit illegal activities and sink into depravity. It is a soul shattering movie that ruins its characters' lives and lays the detritus in front of us to make one heck of a despairing and desolate film. You will never touch so much as an aspirin again after this heavy, heavy film.