This isn't in any way an attempt of making 'Requiem for a Dream', it is however an attempt of making a Danish version of 'Trainspotting' - a thing the book _never_ tried to do.
Where the book is very good, the movie is poor. It fails in understanding (if it actually tries): any of the characters portrayed, it fails in understanding their inter-relationship, and their relation to their parents which is one of the main driving forces in the book.
What really bugs me is that fact that the director&/screen-writer take virtually all the 'main scenes' (possible with his choice of characters) and twists them into fitting a/his - at best - simplified understanding.
a) The scene where Allan's mother burns a hole in her plastic glass and pours red wine all over her shirt. This scene in the book is essential to understanding the development of Allan, who in the book, at this exact point takes pity on and forgives his mother. The fact that this takes place in his appartment (something he starts out by being satisfied with and ends up being embaressed/akwacked by) and not on his granfather's boat (mother's side I might add) just makes choices made that more awkward. Allan's granfather is an essential aspect in understanding the character, and that Maja is present at the dinner is plain wrong.(I dont remember it as the case in the book, but I might be mistaken). I recognise that a movie can't take all aspects of a book and that what which one chooses to include is different from reader to reader, but these two elements remain essential to the character of Allan.
b) Thomas' (aka Steso) relationship to Tilde and his parents.
Steso and Tilde are not in anyway a couple! His movtivation for taking drugs and the exceeding speed of this is not in any way related to his _present_ relationhsip to either of these characters. Where the background in/of a "failed family", from how I read the book, might play an important role it is misportrayed with the reoccuring theme of Steso returning home trying to patch up with his parents. They reject him, Tilde rejects him for Michael and he steps up his drug habit (<<the movie's portrayal). Mine>> Steso loves both his parents and Tilde in his own way. What he hates is society as he interpretes it. Represented in his "usage or mis-usage" of philosophic traditions critical to society. The normality of his parents' life, and the fakeness of Tilde and Michael's relationship (hence the anal, oral, and banal phases thesis). He seeks "thruth" and "reality" as only a druged mind sees it- one-sided and simplified.
c) The dog-shooting scene: Hussein and Asger pointing guns at eachother, Maria screaming in the back... I was appalled here! Well this ties into the whole portrayal of Maria and Husssin. Hussein is in the movie the "primevil" who makes everything come together to get his "angel"........ This in turn ties into how Maria views (and finds) Hussein as her savior - (very) poorly done.
Maria: "So who are you?"
Hussein: "I am a soldier. An elite soldier. The best."
This is where Hussein ties into the other main characters, in the book, and another place where the movie fails in my opinion. Hussein does not like and will not discuss his past. What he did is never really revealed but he is a/becomes a _fugitive_ as every single character in this story is - with relative degrees of 'truth' and 'acknowledgement' in their explicite story.
So in conclusion.
If I were unaware of the director's inspiration I might have rated this a 6/10 attempt of recreating a Danish version of a post-modernistic story of displaced youths versus society, but being too well aware of his inspiration it remains a generous 4/10.
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My list: http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=40920354
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