YMMV / Requiem for a Dream

• Adaptation Displacement: Even after 2000, many people thought that the film was an original film and not an adaptation of a book.
• Accidental Aesop: The New '10s and The New '20s brought awareness to how doctors can even be a source of drug addiction ("Opioid epidemic"), but Sara signing the consent form for electroshock therapy also brings to mind about how difficult it can be for the mentally ill to navigate the medical system.
• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: Since the worst consequences of the main characters’ drug addictions come at the hands of others, especially institutions like prisons and mental hospitals, it can be argued that the movie is a message on less how drugs are the problem and more on how the legal system and society at large need to treat drug addicts like people in need of help instead of criminals/lunatics in need of brute force solutions.
• Angst Aversion: Requiem for a Dream holds a rightful reputation as being one of the most bleak and depressing movies in existence. Unsurprisingly, even the most dedicated of movie watchers steer clear of this flick for that very reason.
• Anvilicious: A contentious point about the movie, as it reassures you in the most depressing ways imaginable that Drugs Are Bad.
• Award Snub: The film received a single Academy Award nomination and won nothing. Considering the film's staying power (such as being ranked in the IMDB's top 250 films to this day), as well as its visual style being the subject of thoughtful video essays, its absence in the Best Director and Best Picture categories seems increasingly questionable in retrospect.
  • Ellen Burstyn's heartbreaking performance as Sara lost the Academy Award for Best Actress to Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich.
  • Jennifer Connelly's acting got some nominations in different award systems and still won none.
  • Clint Mansell's score has enjoyed a particular following long after the film's release, yet received no nomination.
  • The film did not receive nominations for either cinematography or editing despite both the camera work and storytelling style being unforgettable elements critical to the film's power.
• Awesome Music: Used really oddly to highlight decidedly unawesome events.
  • Special mention to the famous opening bombastic score set to the incredible sight of... two men pushing a television across Brooklyn.
  • Not to the mention the pure Nightmare Fuel of how well it captures the characters' Sanity Slippage.
  • The movie's theme, "Lux Aeterna", is so famous it's heard by people before they've even seen the movie. The fact that Russian urban legends hold it to be originally composed by Mozart is telling.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: Marion's "ass to ass" scene is infamous for being abject Fan Disservice in context (as she's prostituting herself for drugs), but online circles such as porn sites and NSFW subreddits have recycled clips from it without the context, turning the horror of the original scene into straight titillation.
• Complete Monster:
  • "Big Tim" is a local drug dealer and pimp who takes advantage of addicted women to force them into sexual favors in exchange for drugs. After coercing Marion Silver into sexual acts by withholding drugs she's current suffering withdrawal from, Big Tim manipulates her into taking part in an orgy of other women under his sway, for the viewing pleasure of wealthy clients. Big Tim dopes up all of the women to make them more malleable, and watches on with smug satisfaction as they are pushed into the most debasing acts possible, uncaring of the empty shells they are left as.
  • "Uncle" Hank is a disturbing pervert introduced in Fortune Cookie breaking a salesman into becoming his Sex Slave. Shown later working with Big Tim, Hank personally torments the women they use for prostitution, and is shown humiliating two for the pleasure of himself and a crowd of clients.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Keith David as Little John of the club.
• Funny Moments: The unaltered scene of Hubert Selby Jr. as the guard.
• He Really Can Act:
  • Marlon Wayans was best known for comedy, and really shocked people with his performance here. Shocked them in a good way.
  • Jennifer Connelly to an extent. While acclaimed as being better than the material she was given, most of her roles catered to her beauty and she was in the process of becoming a respected actress. The process started with Dark City, continued here and was solidified with her Oscar win for A Beautiful Mind.
  • While Jared Leto has become a polarizing figure in recent years, even his biggest detractors are willing to admit that he's quite good in this film.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Dylan Baker playing a doctor who is involved in an amputation? Wouldn't be the last time.
  • In the behind-the scenes footage, Marlon Wayans is seen making fun of Jar Jar Binks, but immediately afterward he went on to play a similar annoying, cowardly black sidekick in Dungeons & Dragons (2000).
  • Betty Ross and the Joker are lovers! Comic book fanboy juice! Don't forget Goliath.
  • The scene of Marion being seen at the end of a pier had previously been done in another Jennifer Connelly movie (Dark City, and Darren Aronofsky had no idea of the similarities). It would be done again in House of Sand and Fog.
• Jerkass Woobie: The opening scene establishes Harry as being quite a Jerkass to his mom, Sara, but later in the first act subverts it by showing that he seems harsh sometimes, but he really does love and care about his mom and wants the best for her. Then the next two acts happen.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "So what're we gonna do now?" "Ass to ass". "ASS TO ASS!"
  • The remix of the main theme practically has a life of its own now.
• Misaimed Fandom: "Ass to Ass" is supposed to be seen as a humiliating act... but thanks to it being taken out of context, people have thought it was a cool sex act. Even when some knew what the context was, it has made some people think it was titillating.
• Narm: The excessive cuts, overly dramatic music, and oddly music video feel of some scenes can make them a bit hard to take seriously. Going by comments from the director, this may have been intentional, though.
• Once Original, Now Common: The film's use of the "hip hop montage", a series of rapid cuts accompanied by sound effects, looks normal now, despite the fact that this was the film that popularised its use (Darren Aronofsky previously used it in π.) This extends to the point where The Simpsons episode "I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can" used a similar montage to show Homer's reaction to eating a "Rib-wich", which McDonald's themselves then copied for a bacon wrap ad.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Christopher McDonald as the "JUICE" infomercial/motivational speaker Tappy Tibbons, whose program Sara watches and she believes she's getting invited to as a "contestant". They filmed an entire presentation of the "JUICE" program in one day with MacDonald improvising most of it. At the end of the shoot, everyone in attendance gave him a standing ovation.
  • Uncle Hank, better known as "the ass-to-ass guy". He later appeared in Black Swan.
  • Dylan Baker as the doctor who turns Harry and Tyrone in. He squeezes quite a lot of performance into a minute or so of screentime.
• Paranoia Fuel: The film could make you think about staying away from your refrigerator.
• Realism-Induced Horror: While there's no central villain, each of the four characters suffer in extremely unnerving ways. The consequences of their drug usage is portrayed in a disturbingly realistic way as their lives slowly decay throughout the story. Seeing what happens to them can easily scare anyone from wanting to try heroin even once, since one dose is enough to get addicted. There’s a reason the movie is considered one of the most depressing and disturbing of all time.
• Special Effect Failure: As sad as the film's ending is, it does get ruined when one notices Jared Leto's real arm pressed up against him can be seen under the blue sheet, and when people can see the cotton on the ground masquerading as snow (when the ladies try to console each other after seeing Sara) and that it was clearly shot in a summer day.
• Squick: Harry's infected arm, which has practically withered away from repeated drug use.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: For some people, though by no means all. The quote on the main page really sums it up...
• Values Resonance:
  • The racism in the prison system, as well as how horrible drug addicts are treated, is still relevant over 20 years later.
  • Sara's drug addiction comes not from a drug dealer in a back alley but a doctor. This is eerily remnant of the Opiod Epidemic (wherein companies literally lied to doctors that it wasn't addictive!).
  • It's also notable how Sara was only able to give a scribbly line for consent. It's very very hard for mentally ill people to navigate the medical system - and this includes drug addicts.
• The Woobie:
  • Sara in particular comes off as the most sympathetic, having never gotten involved with the drug trade and simply wanting to have something to live for again. She plays the most part of a victim, being neglected by her son and doctor and appearing generally unhappy and lonely. Especially since she only wanted to lose weight and wasn't trying to get high in the first place. She is also a loving mother who genuinely cares greatly for her son, and this love seems to extend to Marion (whom she fantasizes about marrying her son, implying that she already thinks of Marion like a daughter and feels that Marion is a good match for him).
  • Tyrone, too, though he's not nearly as completely a victim of circumstance as Sara is. Of the four main characters, he's the only one who manages to get through the entire movie with his affection for his loved ones intact, and he's motivated primarily by his love for his mother... and then he ends up doing vomit-inducing hard labor as a young, black drug dealer in a Southern prison under openly racist guards. Some of the only touching moments in Winter are Tyrone holding Harry's hand in the work line, and calling for help because his friend is sick.

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