I really wasn’t expecting this to live up to the hype it’s been surrounded with, but I was completely blown away. Unbelievably gut-wrenching and painful to watch, Ellen Burstyn’s performance completely broke my heart. I wasn’t overly impressed with the film at the start or expecting to be, but from the moment that Marion left that man’s apartment after selling herself for the first time, I couldn’t look away. I thought it was very well-crafted and artistically accomplished. The final scenes, synchronized with the score were just perfectly done and evoked sheer horror like I’ve seldom felt before. Sure, it’s not exactly completely realistic, but the intensely expressive and sometimes surreal nature of the film gave it raw, sledgehammer impact that I don’t think it would have had had it been more thoroughly grounded in reality.