Requiem for a Dream

Question: What is the drug the characters use in the film? They inject it like heroin, but they snort it like cocaine. There's also the dialating eyelids, which occur when coke is snorted - so what is the drug in the film? And please don't base the answer on the IMDB.

Answer: Both heroin and cocaine are used in the film. Cocaine is used mostly by Marion, and also injected at least once but heroin can also be snorted. The route of administration stereotype does not hold to all drug users (except for alcohol, which can pretty much only be taken by mouth) The fact the prison guard says "He won't be putting any more DOPE in that arm" - dope is slang for heroin in New York, not coke - and the severe withdrawals as soon as the drug is unavailable suggests heroin is used by all three major characters. The pills used by Sara are preludin, dexedrine and diazepam (according to the novel which the film is based on) but I do not know what the "Blue" pill (the one she takes in the afternoon) is.

Question: [Spoilers] What exactly happens to Sarah Goldfarb at the end? Some people say she's in a catatonic state, but she seems to be functioning too well for that. Can someone please explain the situation she's in after the Electric Shock Therapy?

Answer: Sarah Goldfarb is not catatonic, but she appears lethargic and withdrawn after the ECT, and she has lost the vigour and excitement she had while taking the diet pills. The way she walks around suggests she has been given typical antipsychotics (eg thorazine, stelazine) to subdue her.

Revealing mistake: Whenever someone takes drugs and their pupils "dilate" you can see that it's a normal eye being distorted by a computer because the arc of reflected light also is distorted.

Low Cow

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Trivia: Director Darren Aronofsky included nearly the entire cast of his debut film Pi in Requiem for a Dream. Abe Rabinowitz, Arnold the shrink, Nurse Mall, the mailman and the E.R. Doctor were all in Pi. Joanne Gordon even plays the same character Mrs. Ovadia (in Pi she was the evil landlady and is one of Sarah's friends in Requiem). Also his mother Charlotte Aronofsky is Mrs. Miles, another of Sarah's friends; and his father Abraham Aronofsky is the newspaper reading man on the subway.

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