Harry Goldfarb, his friend Tyrone, and his girlfriend Marion, are heroine addicts. Harry and Tyrone traffic the drug. Tyrone hopes to escape the ghetto and Harry promises to use his proceeds to help Marion open her own fashion store. Sara Goldfarb, Harry’s mother, gets the opportunity to appear on her favorite game show. Hoping to lose weight fast, she sees a shady doctor who prescribes amphetamines to control her appetite. Each character gets their glimpse at a happier life until it all comes crashing down—When the local supply of heroine evaporates, Harry, Tyrone, and Marion experience an unfathomably extremely painful withdrawal. And Sara Golfarb, after continually increasing her dosage, develops amphetamine psychosis. Act three involves each character devolving into a torrential state of despair and agony. The film ends with each squandered into a charred-husk of their former selves.
There’s a lot that I appreciate about this film. To start, the brilliant editing. Then, there’s the cast of characters. Though deeply flawed in their own ways, I found each compelling and rooted for them. I also liked how Sara Goldfarb’s story of amphetamine addiction played off of and contrasted with the heroine addiction stories of the other characters. In this way, I believe the film expands to a broader statement on our shared dependancies, from medication, to television, to the little lies we tell ourselves. And finally, even as Clint Mansell’s dramatic music has found life beyond this film, it beautifully lends so much weight to the characters and their stories.
But I ultimately didn’t enjoy this film. Nor do I think it’s designed to be enjoyed. It was as challenging and harrowing as an honest telling of this story should be. But more so. By the last 20 minutes of the film, each character was in a cartoonishly bad predicament. Bordering on torture-porn (or actual porn), it really went off the rails in a way I couldn’t convincingly follow. One of my co-workers suggested that perhaps this frenetic sequence isn’t meant to mirror reality but rather each character’s perceptions of their reality—like a drug induced purgatory. Maybe I buy that. I don’t know. What I know is I probably won’t feel the need to watch this again.