Requiem for a Dream

Each week, Stanford Under the Stars: Movie Nights at Frost brings a selection of movies featuring actors who attended Stanford or various Stanford and Northern California filming locations. Jennifer Connelly, known for her roles in Requiem for a Dream and A Beautiful Mind, began modeling when she was 10 years old and acted in films as a teenager, including her role in the 1986 movie Labyrinth with David Bowie. After studying English literature at Yale, Connelly transferred to Stanford to study drama and left before graduating to continue a career in acting.

Imaginatively evoking the inner landscape of human beings longing to connect, to love and feel loved, the film is a parable of happiness gloriously found and tragically lost. Requiem for a Dream tells parallel stories that are linked by the relationship between the lonely, widowed Sara Goldfarb and her sweet but aimless son, Harry. The plump Sara, galvanized by the prospect of appearing on a TV game show, has started on a dangerous diet regimen to beautify herself for a national audience.