Good acting can't save this one

Rating: 2/10 (1 January 2011)

Ballerina Nina (Natalie Portman) wins the lead in a production of Swan lake led by tyrannical director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel). After she wins the lead things slowly become stranger and stranger with another ballerina named Lily (Mila Kunis) seemingly trying to take her place. It all comes to a head on the opening night.
**SPOILERS!** Boring and disappointing "thriller" from director Darren Aronofsky. It was ridiculously obvious to me what was going on within the first 20 minutes! The rest of the movie just shows Nina slowly (VERY slowly) spiraling down to madness. The imagery was sometimes shocking but, towards the end, I was bored and couldn't wait for it to end. WAY too much ballet material too. Aronofsky gives plenty of clues to point that Nina is losing it--but then ends leaving a ridiculously large number of dangling ends. Even worse, I was never caught up in Nina's plight keeping me at an emotional distance from the whole movie. Good acting helps a little. Portman is kind of blank (but there's a reason for that) until the end when she breaks out. Cassel is just vicious as her director, Kunis is great as her best friend (or is she?), Barbara Hershey (looking TERRIBLE) is great as her mom and a virtually unrecognizable Winona Ryder throws in a small but strong performance. But the movie as a whole is too obscure, too slow and (frankly) too boring! I give it a 2.