Quick Movie Review: Black Swan (2010)

Black Swan (2010)


Bottomline: If you are a cinephile, a HUGE fan of Natalie Portman or Darren Aronofsky, then go see this in the theaters. Otherwise. . .wait for the DVD.

Where Can I Go See This Film? It is still drawing big crowds in local theaters.

Darren Aronofsky? Where have I heard that name? He is the director of last year’s The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke.

Why is this movie Rated R? For several good reasons – horrific language, horrific scenes that border on torture, strong sexual content, which includes a lot of crotch-grabbing for some reason.

Is there a better movie showing an artist’s descent into madness? There are two that come quickly to mind that I would highly recommend: Amadeus (1984), which has Tom Hulce giving an incredible performance as Mozart with F. Murray Abraham giving his Oscar-winning performance as Salieri. It won eight Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director (Milos Foreman); and Shine (1996) starring Geoffrey Rush as David Helfgott as a classical pianist, who suffers a mental breakdown, is institutionalized and then returns to the concert hall.

QMR Opinion:
Black Swan is billed as a “psycho sexual thriller.” It’s psycho for sure. It’s sexual, sort of. It’s a thriller in the sense that there are moments where you are surprised and shocked. By far the best thing about this entire film is Natalie Portman. Good gracious, she truly puts everything on the line here – emotionally, viscerally, and physically. I’ve always liked Portman and she delivers a tour de force performance here – it’s pure method all day.

Nina (Portman) is a long-time ballerina and has, at long last, been selected to be the Swan Queen in the company’s opening performance of the season. As such, she is asked to play both the pristine White Swan and the more sensual Black Swan. The company’s director, played by Vincent Cassel, pushes her to get in touch with this dark, sensual side. It’s this exploration of her sensual self that leads to the “sexual” part of the film, but it’s handled sloppily and there were several supposed sexual scenes that elicited laughs from the theater audience. The building pressure plus some inevitable mom issues (played marvelously by Barbara Hershey) pushes Nina to the brink of insanity.

The problem with the film is the film. Aronofsky is working really, really hard to make this live up to the hype as a “psycho sexual thriller,” but ends up with a lot of handheld camera worked designed to increase tension and some run-of-the-mill horror film tricks that are supposed to thrill us. The most fascinating scenes for me were the ones that gave us insight into the preparation of a ballet and of the dancers. I gave a similar review to Aronofsky’s The Wrestler last year. Rourke was phenomenal in the role, but the overall film was weak. Such is the case with Black Swan.