"What is Addiction?"
Keep that question in mind when you see this film, as it is the dominating theme of the plot. Dark, depressing and ultimately doomed characters seem to be Director Darren Aronofsky's strong point (bare in mind I'm watching this after 2008's The Wrestler and 2011's Black Swan) and he doesn't disappoint.
The story or 4 connected people dealing with their personal addiction, a mother and son, and teh son's friend and girlfriend, each of them has their vice and a dream that is doomed from the outset.
Starting slow, I buckled up for what I thought was going to be the Offsy's only dud at around the 30 minute mark, but mirroring the trajectory of the characters lives, the pace seems to picked up toward the end. Quicker cuts and increasing shots of these poor bastards brings the end to us sooner than we think, leaving us to want to go hang ourselves it's so dark.
My case in point is the mother, expertly pulled off by Ellen Burstyn who just want's to be on television, not for money, but because she want's something to happen in her quiet life, and she's driven quite literally insane waiting for a studio to get back to her about her application to be on a gameshow, what starts as a seemingly dark comedy turns rather rapidly into a depressing yarn.
Conclusion? Watch at your own peril, though fascinating and extremely well put together, the story is so amazingly dark. A masterclass of cinema at a time when we had other well timed and written pieces such as Fight Club and Memento, signalling a change of pace for hollywood, these films are absolutely character driven, it's a shame the rest of the decade couldn't maintain the great start it got off to. 8.5/10
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