Requiem for a Dream

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by Darren Aronofsky and Hubert Selby, Jr.

Faber and Faber

Due/Published October 2000, 127 pages, paper

ISBN 057120631X

This modern-day fable is set on the rusted mean streets of Coney Island, Brooklyn. The dual storyline parallels four people who hanker after a better life, in an end-of-the-century America that offers a panoply of addictive, mine-altering possibilities: television, food, sex, drugs, weight loss... There's Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn), a lonely, widowed mother who dreams of appearing on TV, but spends her days glued to the tube, especially the game shows. She feels overweight and unattractive and her unhappiness isn't helped by her son Harry (Jared Leto), who'll gladly steal Sara's TV set to pawn it for drug money. Harry is a serious junkie. So is his beautiful girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly). So is his best friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans). But these three have their own dreams, of making a big score and opening a store in the city. Soon their beautiful dreams starts to fall apart and assume horrifying dimensions. Yet Sara, Harry, Marion and Tyrone refuse to abandon hope. And so they plummet downwards with their dreams in a nightmarish, gut-wrenching free-fall."