It is very well made in all ways. Maybe a little light in plot. A good movie that I don't like. Just a huge downer cooked up in such a way as to enhance the depressing aspects. I like unhappy ending sometimes but this was unhappy beginning, middle and ending. Aronofski would have had me wear a sensory enhancement helmet if he could so that I could feel even more of the depredations so authentically portrayed. Even the music was depressing (and also very well made).
Normally I like these seedy, sordid movies about losers and their horrible lowlife problems, but I didn't give a damn about any of the characters and I wished they would all die. I rented it once and never saw it again and have no desire to do so.
"Midnight Cowboy", "Panic in Needle Park", "Scarecrow", "Taxi Driver", "The Basketball Diaries", "Trainspotting" and the adaption of another of Hubert Selby's works, "Last Exit to Brooklyn" come to mind.
Now "educate" me about how these are actually inspiring stories about the triumph of the human spirit over desperation caused by the oppression of the dominant classes, and I'm the "real" ignorant loser for calling them lowlife tales. I know you're itching to do it. and you think you've baited me into your trap.