A psychological thriller by Darron Aronofsky (PI, Requiem of a Dream) starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis.
The story: a dancer (Portman) gets her first starring role in a new production of Black Swan where one dancer is going to play both the White Swan and the Black Swan. Unfortunately, while she is perfect for the White Swan, she needs to let go to become the Black Swan. Another dancer (Kunis) is perfect for the Black Swan and they form a friendship and rivalry that plunges the first dancer into fear, passion, and paranoia.
Was it good?
Kind of. This is at lest the third movie by Aronofsky about people plunging into insanity (Pi, Requiem of a Dream and this) and he is good at pulling the audience into the eyes of madness. However, where those movies worked this one falls apart. PI is about pure obsession and madness. R-o-a-Dream is about peopel spiraling into addiction. BLACK SWAN though is about creativity and art. It's about a girl who wants to be perfect, but to be perfect as the black swan she will need to let go of her concept of perfection. She needs to be spontaneous and sexual and wild. This is Portman's story -- trying to get in touch with that sexual side of herself. And for most of the movie it is at least an interesting ride.
*** SPOILERS ***
However, it's in the final act that things fall apart. In the end Portman feels threatened by Kunis and kills her and then becomes the Black Swan. But what the hell does that mean? So in a movie about embracing sexuality it is an act of violence that allows her to become the black swan? What does that say about women's sexuality, that women are threatened by it? That wimen need to kill it? That women are rivals and need to kill each other? And then it's revealed that Portman didn't really kill Kunis, but in fact she killed herself, allowing her to become the Black Swan...so what does that say about creativity, about passion, about sexuality?
It's in that final phase, when the movie should be reaching the height of its theme, it's most powerful statement of what the movie is about that it falls apart and all the threads seem to contradict itself and it becomes a jumbled mesh.
So at the end when Portman says it was "perfect" it feels less like a powerful statement of creativity or sexuality or passion, but simply the final meaningless word of a delusional girl. And for a movie that seems to want to say something more about art and passion, that's a pretty big failure.
Still, there is enough interesting things that it can still be worth seeing. But unfortunately it's more of the hot mess catagory than the great film catagory.
*** RENTAL ***
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