Requiem for a Dream is my favourite film, and a film that is strangely untarnished in my mind, because I’ve hardly read anything about it, as much as I love it.

I came across a discussion today on /r/movies, and that comment took a few seconds to process, but yes, now I’m wondering how I did not see that earlier.

Requiem’s “villain” is hope, not drugs

Aronofsky’s films are all thematically heavy on addiction / obsession [Pi, The Fountain, The Wrestler, Black Swan], but where these others are told through one main character, Requiem really brings to the fore the shared mindset of addiction across vastly different circumstances and lives.

It’s a bit obvious isn’t it? It’s called Requiem for a Dream. It’s about the collection of souls crushed by a dream, the real cost of having hope. Go through each character and you’ll see that each addiction is about hope to either alleviate or escape from a situation. It’s not the drug that’s the enemy, it’s the peoples use of escape.

Yes, it is a bit obvious, and I did see it on some level; I just hadn’t seen it crystallised on paper.

Is addiction / obsession always fuelled by hope though? In the case of this film, it feels that way, but of Aronofsky’s in general, I’m not so sure.

Either way, another viewing this indeed warrants.