Requiem for a Dream

The main characters: mother - Sarah ( Ellen Burstyn ) and son - Harold Goldfarb ( Jared Leto ); Harold's girlfriend is Marion Silver ( Jennifer Connelly ) and Harold's friend is Tyrone Love ( Marlon Wayans ).

The action in the film, as in the novel, takes place over the three seasons of the year - in the summer, autumn and winter.

Summer

Sarah is an elderly widow living alone in an apartment on Brighton Beach ( Brooklyn ). She spends a lot of time in front of the TV. She especially likes the advertising show dedicated to the “victories” of people over their appetite (diet, refusal of meat, sugar). Sarah herself consumes a lot of chocolate and other high-calorie foods.

Gary, her son, sometimes appears in her house to take away and sell a TV to a junkman, and to buy drugs with the money raised. Every time Sarah buys the TV back.

When she got a call from the Malin & Blok television studio and was invited to take part in one of her favorite shows, her life suddenly found a new meaning; Sarah is seized by the desire to speak on the TV show as spectacularly as possible; she dyes her hair and tries to put on her favorite red dress, but discovers that she has become too full for him.

Sarah tries to go on a diet, but to no avail; then she turns to a friend who recommends a doctor to her. From the latter, she receives a prescription for tablets containing amphetamines . Harold, once visiting his mother, notices that these pills have a strong effect on her behavior, and asks Sarah to stop taking them. Sarah tells her son how lonely she was all the years after her husband's death; lost weight and a chance to get on television make it more significant in the eyes of friends.

Shocked, Harold, in shame, promises her mother to visit her more often and introduce her to her friend Marion. On the way home, Harold weeps with pity for her mother and shame, but calms down after taking the dose.

Meanwhile, Harold and Tyrone begin to make money as drug dealers. They buy a net dose, dilute it in half and resell it at the same price. Friends succeed, they easily earn a lot of money. Harold and Marion begin to make plans for the future: they dream of opening a fashion store, because Marion feels the calling of a fashion designer. For Tyrone, his financial success is an opportunity to live in peace and happiness, having escaped from the cruelties of street life.

Autumn

With the advent of autumn, Sarah's dependence on pills intensifies, the doses are constantly increasing. She begins hallucinations, about which she tells the doctor; he writes her a new prescription, recommending taking doses on it for a week.

Hallucinations are becoming more powerful and aggressive, and Sarah is gradually losing touch with reality. All this time she has been waiting for a letter from the television program to which she was invited, but he is not.

Meanwhile, friends have problems: the mafia war begins in the city, and drugs disappear. Tyrone is being arrested, Brody - his friend and main drug supplier - is killed. Harold and Marion spend money, which they saved up for a long time, on a bail for Tyrone to get him out of prison.

Over the next few months, getting a dose is getting harder. A couple can only buy a dose every day, which is barely enough with their ever-growing dependence. Money runs out quickly, the desire for a new dose comes to the fore. Marion has sex with a nasty person to raise money for drugs, but Harold no longer notices this. Harold and Marion begin to quarrel and blame each other. Their relationship is getting worse.

Drugs are sold by one of the few dealers who still have a high-quality “product”, just before Christmas - as a gift. At a meeting with one of these drug dealers in a grocery store warehouse, Harold and Tyrone try to stand in line and buy a drug, but due to the aggressive behavior of the crowd, the deal breaks down.

Marion, meanwhile, in an attack of "breaking" destroys his drawings and household items. Harold returns without a dose and quarrels with Marion. In annoyance, he leaves her the Baby John phone, which offers a dose in exchange for sexual services.

At this time, Sarah takes the largest, for the entire course of treatment, dose of pills, and she begins terrible hallucinations. During hallucinations, the studio of her beloved television show moves to her apartment, and the audience, the presenter and even herself - beautiful, beloved by the public and famous, laugh at her and her lifestyle. A lush fridge pounced on her.

Horrified by these visions, Sarah runs away from the apartment and heads for the studio to find out when she will be invited to the program.

Winter

Suppressed by the latest failure, Harold and Tyrone are trying to break the vicious circle by going to Florida , where, in their opinion, drugs are much more affordable. At the halt Harold notices that the vein into which he injected drugs is infected , but still makes an injection into the rotting flesh; he gets worse, and the infection spreads further.

Tyrone delivers a friend to the hospital. Seeing Harold, the doctor immediately realizes that he is a drug addict, and reports his friends to the police. Both are arrested and sent to prison.

Meanwhile, Marion, on the advice of Harold, comes to the pimp - "Baby John." After sex, “Baby John” tells Marion about the orgy he organizes, for participating in which she can receive an even larger dose. At first, Marion refuses, but the dose ends, and she agrees.

Sarah, after a dramatic incident in a television studio, is sent to a psychiatric hospital; there they bind her, administer drugs, force-feed her.

Harold in jail uses his only call to contact Marion. He tells her that he will come soon, she - that he will be waiting for him.

After Harold's inflammation goes into gangrene due to the lack of proper treatment, his arm is amputated. After using amphetamines, Sarah's body develops immunity to drugs, which is why she receives electric shock treatment, which she signs a consent to in a semi-conscious state. Tyrone remains in prison, where he suffers “breaking” and is harassed by prison staff. Marion comes to the orgy of "Baby John" and, entertaining the guests, has sex with a woman to get a dose.

The film ends with a last look at the fate of the main characters. This scene is accompanied by the oppressive musical composition “Lux Aeterna” performed by the Kronos Quartet . Harold, recovering in the hospital, calls Marion. The nurse offers to send for her, but he replies to her that Marion will not come. Sarah, turned into a haggard, lifeless shell, is in the clinic for the mentally ill. Tyrone, tormented by pain, survives her first night in prison and recalls her long-lost mother. Marion, after an orgy, lies at home on the couch, clutching a drug bag in her hand, in the midst of her sketches, torn by her.

All heroes lie in the same pose of the human fetus.

The last shots show Sarah and the crazy images generated by her brain after a long use of amphetamine: she sees herself elegant and beautiful on the long-awaited show. Sarah won the grand prize; her son, Harold, is a successful young man about to marry. Mother and son hug and say that they love each other, under the cheers of the crowd and the flickering lights of the stage.

The happy scene is symbolically crossed out crosswise by rays of light.

The composer of the soundtrack is Clint Mansell , who recorded it with the Kronos Quartet string ensemble. The arrangement for the string quartet was written by composer David Lang , Pulitzer Prize winner . The soundtrack was warmly received and subsequently used in various forms in trailers for other films and series.

• Official movie website (in English) (in the archive of the design studio)
• " Requiem for a Dream " (Eng.) On the Internet Movie Database