Of all the characters to appear in a Darren Aronofsky movie, Jennifer Connelly’s in Requiem for a Dream may have received the most tragic ending. Darren Aronofsky has some weird movies, right? There’s a lot to say about them, but whenever I leave one, one of my first thoughts is, “That was weird“. I love weird in my movies, though, so I’m not complaining, and I’m certainly not saying his movies are quaint or oddball; they are weird to the extreme. Unnervingly so. Even in his most “grounded” movies (The Wrestler?) I can’t help but feel uncomfortable while watching.

I, and plenty of other people around the internet, have rarely felt more uncomfortable watching a movie than I did watching Aronofsky’s 2000 psychological drama Requiem for a Dream. Despite that genre description, it borders on psychological horror. A split narrative that follows four characters in the throes of drug addiction, Aronofsky has an unflinching eye examining the destruction drugs and addiction can result in. It’s the type of movie you might not want to watch twice, and when it comes to Marion Silver’s (Jennifer Connelly) story, getting through it once is tough enough.

Jennifer Connelly Stars In Requiem For A Dream As Marion Silver

Marion Is An Aspiring Clothing Designer

Jennifer Connelly is one of the four leads in Requiem for a Dream, alongside Ellen Burstyn as Sara Goldfarb, Jared Leto as Harry Goldfarb, and Marlon Wayans as Tyrone C. Love. Marion is Harry’s girlfriend, and the pair are addicted to heroin. They have grand plans, such as opening a clothing store for Marion’s designs. When their friend Tyrone is caught up in a gang shootout he had no part in, Harry and Marion use their savings to bail him out. Simultaneously, the heroin supply dries up, a result of gang warfare.

At desperate straights and suffering from withdrawal, Harry encourages Marion to become a Sєx worker. As Marion continues her work in the Sєx trade, her relationship with Harry becomes strained, and when Harry is sent to jail, she’s completely alone. Desperate, she begins working for a pimp, Big Tim (Keith David), who subjects her to humiliating group Sєx in front of a jeering crowd in order to get drugs. Jennifer Connelly’s character ends Requiem for a Dream curled up in a fetal position on her couch, just like the others, as the leitmotif “Lux Aeterna” by Clint Mansell swells.

Marion Receives The Most Disturbing End In The Movie

Marion Has Yet To Reach Her Bottom In Requiem For A Dream

Out of all four disturbing endings in Requiem for a Dream, Marion’s unnerved me the most. While she’s curled up on her couch, the camera spins upward to show all her clothing designs littered around her. It’s a powerful visual. Her old dreams are literally scattered around her as she cowers away from them. What gets me even more is the look on her face. Marion is smiling in the scene. In her mind, she succeeded; she got the drugs she desperately needed. It’s a haunting glimpse at what’s in store for her.

Tyrone is abused in jail, Harry has his arm amputated, and Sara is catatonic. For these three characters, as tragic as their arcs have been, they’ve at least come to some sort of close. The door is left wide open for Marion, however. Tyrone is despondent and exhausted, Harry is sobbing in a hospital bed, and Sara can’t recognize her old friends. Only Marion appears “happy”. This is alarming because it indicates Marion is not at her bottom just yet like the other characters. There are more horrors and devastation in store for her.

I have no clue if Tyrone and Harry are going to use their predicaments as a catalyst to escape self-destruction, but it’s possible. Sara was not able to escape, but at the very least, she can’t fall further. Marion, on the other hand, has been rewarded with what she’s been chasing the whole movie. She scored the drugs, and the smile on her face suggests she is pleased with the trade she’s made: her dreams and safety for heroin. It’s devastating, and it’s Aronofsky letting the audience know the pain these characters feel does not end once the credits roll.

What Connelly And Aronofsky Thought About Requiem For A Dream’s Ending

Aronofsky Refused To Cut Any Part Of The Ending

Jennifer Connelly and Darren Aronofsky have spoken about their time with Requiem for a Dream, and both understood what a ruinous story and ending it was for Marion. During a Vanity Fair career breakdown, Connelly spoke about the film,

“Her [Marion’s] life, it was so far away from my own and it felt like an opportunity to really use my imagination and try and build something, build a character. And I spent a lot of time with people who were very generous with me, who really shared their experiences with me.”

On how she felt after the performance, Connelly said it was emotionally draining, and she needed time to recover (via BBC),

“I was really looking forward to getting the role out of my system. I went on vacation afterwards to Costa Rica. I took my two-year-old, and my best friend, and we went and I floated in the ocean for two weeks to cleanse myself. It was hard, really hard to go through, emotionally. It was draining, sad, and uncomfortable.”

Darren Aronofsky said about Requiem for a Dream back when it came out (via IndieWire),

“And so I think ‘Requiem’ is not gratuitous in any way. The MPAA had a problem with the 3-minute climax of the film. The entire film has been constructed to climax in that 3 minutes. It’s meant to be an intense bombardment of sound and image. And if I was to trim in any way that sequence — it’s intensity — I think I would undermine the whole purpose of the movie.”

Those last three minutes are indeed intense; that’s kind of an understatement. Until this point, Connelly’s most notable roles had been in Labyrinth, The Rocketeer, and Dark City; she had carefully balanced a career between more audience-pleasing fare with some darker projects that suggested her willingness to experiment. Requiem for a Dream was a dramatic step in a direction no one would have expected, but she totally nailed the part. A large reason the film is in any way palatable is because of Connelly’s affecting and real performance.

Darren Aronofsky Often Gives His Characters Tragic Endings

Marion Silver’s Ending Is Worse Than Any Of Aronofsky’s Characters

As tragic as Marion’s ending is in Requiem for a Dream, it’s par for the course when it comes to Darren Aronofsky movies. The filmmaker loves to deal in psychological tragedy and his characters rarely get happy endings. If they do, it’s usually because they’ve suffered so much that the only way to go is up. In The Whale, Charlie’s (Brendan Fraser) life is truly depressing, but he sort of gets a happy ending, though it’s unclear what really happens. In Noah, Noah (Russell Crowe) reconciles with his family and God, but only after nearly losing his mind to chaos and alcohol.

Then there are all the Darren Aronofsky characters who did get horrible endings to their stories. In Black Swan, Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) gives herself over, mind and body, to becoming a star ballerina, and in the process completely loses herself. Though she considers herself “perfect“, she also bleeds out, and presumably dies if that fade to white means anything. In The Wrestler, Robin Ramzinski (Mickey Rourke) essentially takes his own life by performing a wrestling move he knows will kill him. However, Marion’s fate in Requiem for a Dream is more tragic than any of those.

In a twisted way, Nina and Robin at least received the praise and recognition they had worked their whole lives for, as misguided as those dreams were. Marion does not pursue her dream; she replaces her real dream of being a clothing designer with a new one: acquiring heroin. It’s both a simple dream and an incredibly complicated one. Jennifer Connelly’s character, at the end of Requiem for a Dream, does realize her new dream, but now, she will have to chase it daily until she no longer can.