Movie Review- Black Swan

Before I even start, let me just say that Natalie Portman deserves the Best Actress Oscar this year- hands down. She is absolutely fabulous in this film! However-
Black Swan is the perfect film with which to restart my reviews because it is, in many ways, a flawless film, however, one that also makes a couple of serious mistakes early on and ends up not being all that interesting.
It is the story of a young (though very quickly aging in the world of ballet) ballet dancer (Portman) who is expecting the next “season” to be her time to shine. She lives with her controlling, ex-ballet star mother (Barbara Hershey). The aging diva (Winona Ryder) is being forced into retirement which gives all of the other ballerinas in the troupe the opportunity to show their stuff . Another ballerina, on loan from Chicago (Mila Kunis) comes to rehearsals on the first day, shows up late and does not seem to have the discipline necessary, but is naturally talented.
When it is decided that their first show will be Swan Lake and the same dancer will play both the white and the black swan, Portman obsesses over winning the role. Portman is the controlled, precision dancer and Kunis is, she feels, her main competition. When Portman wins the role with an unexpected trip to see the choreographer, she must then learn the role and keep the possibly backstabbing Kunis away from the role which she has earned. As the opening night gets closer, Portman’s obsessive and paranoid side takes over. Is her mom jealous of her and sabotaging her? Is Kunis trying to befriend her or take away her part? Will she be able to learn both roles and pull them off successfully? And what is up with her possible hallucinations?
As stated above, Portman pulls off an amazingly complicated role with seeming ease. She starts out as the “cute” Portman that we have grown to love over the years. Then, she slowly starts taking her character to darker and darker places. It is so subtle that, by the end of the film, you have to actually take a look back and notice how far she has taken the character over the length of the film. It is a stunningly beautiful performance that seems so simple, yet is one of the most difficult female roles I have ever seen.
The rest of the cast is also wonderful. They play their parts to the hilt. While Kunis is second-billed, she does not have much screen time, but makes the most of it. She plays it both very perky with a slight edge to it which hides her motivations to keep you wondering, along with Portman, what her angle is. Barbara Hershey plays a controlling, manipulative stage mother who plays against Portman very well. Winona Ryder only has a few scenes but is nicely and angrily out of control.
While many columns have been devoted to the females of the cast, the film’s main male cast member, Vincent Cassel, plays a terrifically misogynistic, power hungry, controlling director. Without his sleaziness, the film would never be able to take its dark turns.
Much has been made of the sex scene between the two lead actresses. In reality, it is much ado about nothing. Much is implied but not explicitly shown. While there are many kisses between the two, there is absolutely no more nudity involved than in a GQ photo shoot. It also may be part of Portman’s hallucinations so several strange things happen during the course of this sequence.
The main actresses also do their own dancing which is very impressive. While there are a few close-ups of the feet doing extremely difficult things which could have been doubles- for the most part, the actresses dance from one side of the frame to the other showing that it is truly them at work.
The ballet work and the dancing sequences are marvelous as well with majestic costumes near the end when large portions of Swan Lake play out. It is a large, sumptuous field of vision and is punctuated with bits of black in seas of white.
This is what I mean by technically this film is amazing. I cannot truthfully attack the film on many fronts. The one major issue is the story and plot. While I will not give anything away, there is a major foreshadowing that happens near the very beginning of the film. Even though I was not looking for it, it leapt right out at me as “Pay attention! We are going to foreshadow the events of the film!” So, while I did not know how the story was going to go from A-Z, I knew the general throughline, the major points of the film and how it would end.
While in many types of films (like the big budget action and generic romantic comedies), it is about the journey and not the destination, I would have liked to not know where I was being taken. I wanted to go on a ride and enjoy the twists that were given to me. Instead, it dumped almost all of its surprises near the beginning with only a few jump scares and Natalie Portman’s amazing and career best performance to truly entrance me.
I didn’t find it anywhere near as amazing as the film’s champions are claiming it to be and I found a lot more to like in it than the film’s detractors have. I would recommend this for people who enjoy their dancing and ballet dark, for those who want to see a terrific looking film, and for those who want to see the best female performance on film this year. However, if you are not in these groups, I would stay far away.

Movie rating- 4
Film rating- 8