There was a time when drug movies were happy, cheerful little romps that made you want to rush right out and shoot up. The message may have been a little off, but Cheech and Chong and the guys from “Dude, Where’s My Car?” just scream “Emulate me!”
That’s not true anymore, when gritty realism is where it’s at. Take Darren Aronofsky, who’s walking a thematic tightrope since his low-budget debut, “Pi.” The 1998 film was a paranoid slice of Kafka, a hectic trip for conspiracy theory lovers to take bong hits to.
For his latest, “Requiem for a Dream,” director Aronofsky capitalizes on the scattershot style that made “Pi” such an engrossing experience. The film dazzles from the first frame, though it’s hard to tell whether Aronofsky is experimenting or just flaunting his bag of tricks.
But if “Pi” is anywhere near uplifting (which it isn’t), “Requiem for a Dream” takes a sharp turn in the other direction. This is a downer of a drug movie, a grown-up “Reefer Madness.”
Aronofsky, however, gives us plenty to marvel at along the way.
The story, adapted from Hubert Selby Jr.’s novel “Last Exit to Brooklyn,” focuses on four characters who are battling their own separate addictions.
Jared Leto (better known as Jordan Catalano from television’s “My So-Called Life”) and Marlon Wayans (better known as a Wayans brother) play Harry and Tyrone, two heroin users looking for their next score.
Jennifer Connelly plays Marion, Harry’s co-dependent girlfriend. And, in a performance that has garnered her gobs of award nominations, Ellen Burstyn plays Harry’s mother Sara, a lonely woman addicted to diet pills.
Aronofsky introduces us to the characters in the summer, when young addicts are still in their innocence. Harry and Tyrone are happily shooting up and selling enough to give them a regular source of income. Marion stands by and supports her boyfriend.
Meanwhile, Sara is invited to appear on a TV dieting infomercial, forcing her to find a quick route to weight loss.
But things spiral downward when fall and winter roll around.
Sara becomes a speed freak and Marion is forced to sell her body to help her friends. Harry and Tyrone are losing money dangerously fast, and Harry develops an arm infection, a disturbing sight to rival anything in “Hannibal” (the film has no pesky MPAA rating attached to it).
Aronofsky doesn’t give us much chance to learn about the characters, which is probably just as well.
No film in recent memory has taken such a serious look at the costs of addiction. All four leads tweak their characters to whigged-out perfection, especially Wayans and Burstyn, which makes for a very sobering, if not downright depressing, experience.
But the quick editing, jumpy techno music and unique camera angles make the trip totally engrossing.
And they confirm that “Pi” was no fluke. Aronofsky is a revolutionary, albeit not a very sympathetic one. And he’s not the stoner we all thought he was.
Showtimes are at 7 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Campus Center Cinema in Wells Hall. Admission is $5 for nonstudents and $2 for students with a valid ID. “Requiem for a Dream” is presented by the East Lansing Film Society.
