Black Swan

I had such high hopes for Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, but alas I was sorely disappointed.  In the film, Nina, a focused ballet dancer, begins to unravel after she is given the role as a principle in the ballet Swan Lake.  Pressured by her mother, the head of the company, and a rival dancer, the line between reality and psychosis begins to blur.

Black Swan wasn’t exactly terrible, and I’d watch it over Paul Blart: Mall Cop any day.  It just wasn’t GREAT compared to movies like The Social Network, or The King’s Speech.  I had hoped it would be a visually stunning film, but the dancing sequences were minimal, while the creepy self-mutilation scenes were copious.  Those who liked Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream might enjoy this movie.  It was much more reminiscent of his style in that film, than in The Wrestler.

I kept an open mind about the movie, until the scene where Nina practices one of the dances in her bedroom.  She’s wearing Pointe shoes, doing spins in front of a mirror.  On a wooden floor.  In an apartment.  At night.  Inconsiderate, right?  In an apartment building, wouldn’t the adjacent neighbors be irritated by the incessant pounding from Nina’s ballet shoes?  After that, I just couldn’t get back into the movie.

Though there’s been quite a bit of buzz surrounding Natalie Portman’s performance, I found it to be underwhelming.  She’s teary-eyed and whining for one-hundred out of one-hundred and ten minutes of the film.  It’s a ballet dancing version of her performance in Brothers, The Other Boleyn Girl, V for Vendetta, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, and Closer.