Just Say No

If anyone thinks Requiem for a Dream glamorizes drug use, they clearly didn't watch for more than ten minutes. In the first quarter of the movie, sure, the drugs look fun. Characters use drugs to escape, to party, and to feel better about themselves. The same camera angles and film style is used when Sara eats chocolate and watches TV—those are her drugs of choice.

But the effects of these substances are temporary. Twenty-two minutes in, everything changes. Sara moves on to diet pills. Harry and Ty become not just users but dealers. And Sara gets her TV application and puts it in the mail. From here on out, the drugs are destructive, leading all the characters down paths that leave them curled up in a fetal position before the credits roll.

The same quick cutting camera techniques are used, except instead of seeming fun, like a music video, they simulate over-stimulation and anxiety. They become more repetitive and irritating. They could all be boiled down into one image that recurs in many of Sara's sequences: checking her mailbox and finding it empty.

The camera is positioned inside the mailbox. It's claustrophobic, and we only get a slice of her desperate face as it peeks inside.

That image is so significant, because when all the characters use drugs, they are basically doing the same thing: they're waiting for something that never comes.