I have seen it twice now,
and each time I watch it it makes me just as sad as it did the first time I saw it.
It is not a fairy tale.
So,
I am going to summarize the movie for you.
Don't read the rest of this if you ever plan on watching it.
Sarah Goldfarb.
Sarah is an elderly widow who has one son. Her son steals her TV to sell to get money to buy drugs. She always goes and buys her TV back. The only thing she does is watch TV. One day she gets a call from a TV show saying that she was selected to appear on the show. She is overjoyed. She goes to her closet to try on the pretty red dress she wore at her son's graduation.It is way too small. She tries a diet of eggs and grapefruit. This lasts one day and she decides to get diet pills from the doctor. He gives her pills that kick in immediately. She loses her appetite completely and becomes super happy. However, she starts mixing the pills up, and she starts taking more than prescribed. She becomes addicted. She starts hallucinating. She puts on her red dress and goes to the TV show office and tries to talk to the lady at the front desk. She is all out of sorts and nothing anyone says to her goes through. She keeps talking about going on TV with her deceased husband and her son. They take her to a psychiatric ward and try to feed her. She refuses food. They try to put in a food tube. She refuses that as well. So they give her electric shock therapy. She becomes docile and complacent.
She ends up in the psychiatric ward,
constantly hallucinating about being on TV.
Harry Goldfarb.
Harry is Sarah's only son. He is addicted to heroin, among other drugs. He lives in an apartment with his friend Tyrone. They make a plan to make money by buying drugs in bulk and reselling them for a higher value. They end up making loads of cash. Harry and his girlfriend, Marion, go and make a down-payment on a studio for Marion to sell her clothing designs. They were making enough money that pretty soon they would be able to buy it. However, the man they bought money from was killed. So their funds started to dry up. Harry and Tyrone decide that their only choice is to drive to a different location to get more drugs to sell. On their way, Harry looks at his arm and sees that his arm is becoming infected from using dirty needles to inject heroin. The pain in his arm becomes unbearable, so he goes to the hospital. The doctor, instead of treating the infection, calls the police. Harry gets so sick that they send him back to the hospital. He wakes up in the hospital with no left arm.
He calls for Marion.
The nurse says she will come.
But he knows she will not.
Tyrone Love.
Tyrone gets arrested by the police and ends up in jail. He has major withdrawal symptoms in jail, but he can't do anything about it. He is made to work.
He wants to go home.
But he is stuck in a jail cell.
Marion Silver.
Marion lives with her parents. They give her whatever she wants as long as she goes and sees her therapist once a month. She designs clothing and wants to own her own store. She is ecstatic when Harry and her finally find the perfect place. When things start going downhill, she starts getting upset at Harry for not trying harder. She decides that the only place she can then get help is from her therapist. She spends a night in Hell with her therapist. When she gets home, she finds Harry who tells her that they failed to get more drugs to sell. She and Harry get into a fight, and Harry gives her the number of a man who she can call if she wants to make more money. He leaves her with Tyrone. She tries to kill herself by drowning, but she doesn't have the will power. She calls the man who has her do horrible things. She, essentially, becomes a sex toy. She comes home from the man's house, after she has been completely ravished of any possible dignity she had left, with wads of money.
She smiles.
But it will fade when the money fades.
