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Review by MvMMDI
Added: May 30, 2004
Harry and Tyrone are heroin addicts, who come up with a plan to get a pound of heroin in order to chop it up and sell it for double what they paid for it. Marion, Harry's girlfriend, also wants in on the action because she herself is a drug addict. Everything is actually going nicely with their plan for a while, until the drug supply starts to dry up around town, and everyone starts fiending for a fix. Meanwhile, Harry's mother Sara receives a phone call telling her that she's been chosen to appear on a game show, so she tries to lose some weight so that she can fit into her red dress when she appears on the show. She doesn't have the willpower for normal diets, so she goes to a doctor in order to get weight loss medication, which she slowly becomes addicted to. The movie follows the addictions of all four of these people, and what it leads them to do in order to get just one more fix.
Excellent movie right here that really captures the feeling of addiction. It follows the split scene format that is seeming to become more and more popular these days, where it jumps from one storyline to the next, with each storyline being connected to the other in some way. There's Harry and Tyrone's storyline, which shows the business side of selling drugs, Harry's addiction to the drug they're selling, and Tyrone's wanting to make his mother proud. Then there's Marion's storyline, which shows her selling her body out to various people in order to get the drug she's so addicted to, and how she loses all the things she's worked for due to the drug. Finally, there's Sara's storyline, where she becomes so obsessed with appearing on this television show, and in turn becomes so addicted to the diet pills that her life just becomes that of a junkie. Each storyline meets up with the other here and there, but for the most part, they're almost completely separate from one another except for the obvious connections of boyfriend / girlfriend and son / mother.
My only real gripe about this movie was the amount of street drug terminology that was used throughout. Granted, it made the movie seem more realistic, but there were more than a few scenes where I was clueless as to what was going on due to my lack of knowledge on what the hell they were talking about. Maybe if I was a bit of a junkie myself, I would have gotten it a bit more... but in the end, things reveal themselves enough so that you know what's going on despite these scenes, so it works out in the end.
On the acting side of things, everyone plays their parts perfectly, with Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) being the biggest surprise. I expected Marlon to either be a comic relief role, or to suck horribly in the serious role, but he really put out an excellent performance. Jared Leto (Harry) isn't really up around the top of my favorite actors list, but he really pulled off an incredible performance as the heroin-addicted kid who just wants to succeed at something, all while slowly killing himself. Sara (Ellen Burstyn) also does an excellent job with the lonely mother role, and doesn't miss a beat when going into the withdrawal-suffering crazy lady role. And finally, Marion (Jennifer Connelly). Her performance really didn't match up to the rest of the cast; that's not to say she wasn't good, but when compared to the incredible performances given by everyone else, she just seemed a bit out of her league.
Overall, this movie is well worth the viewing. 9/10.
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Delusion Over Addiction
