Jared Leto – The Frame

This has been on my to-watch list for a very long time, thanks to falling in love with Aronofsky’s The Fountain and realizing I probably couldn’t call myself a huge Aronofsky fan without having seen his most well-known film. Fast-forward several years and I’ve now seen almost every Aronofsky film EXCEPT this one. Ha. I figured I’d get it during this challenge, and my friend Elisabeth came through.

The film follows four characters as they fall deeper and deeper into drug addiction. Jared Leto and his buddy Marlon Wayans continually hock Leto’s mom’s TV to score, but then move into dealing, hoping to hit it big (a plan Leto’s girlfriend Jennifer Connelly is on board with, because then she’d get the really good stuff). Leto’s mom Ellen Burstyn spends all her time watching a game show on TV, then gets hooked on diet pills that are basically speed when she thinks she might have a chance to be on the show. All these people are delusional and eventually their addictions get the better of them in horrific ways.

So far in this challenge I’ve been assigned films that I loved, that delighted me, that I thought were okay, that surprised me, and that impressed me. This was the first one that blew me away. On Facebook I’ve been asking people involved in the challenge to guess which of the week’s films I’ll like better (upcoming: Capricorn One, which I have not watched yet). Derek, who assigned this week’s films, said I’d like Mr. Nobody better “because it is more directly in your wheelhouse.” Boy, is it ever.

Mr. Nobody is the last mortal in the world at 112 – everyone else is now immortal thanks to a process that endlessly renews their cells. No one knows who he is, where he came from, and his memories are unclear and confused. But that’s not stopping a curious journalist from sneaking in to try to get his story. That’s what we get in flashbacks, alongside “current” sections with Mr. Nobody and the journalist. But hold on, Mr. Nobody seems to be recalling two or three different lives, branching narratives based on a choice he may or may not have made at age 8.

Tag: Jared Leto

Challenge Week 37: Requiem for a Dream

Challenge Week 8: Mr. Nobody