Lovely, chaotic masterpiece.

Rating: 9/10 (19 January 2011)

Critics who don't get this movie or old prudes need not apply. This is one of the most beautifully chaotic yet intelligent movies I have ever seen. As long as you have good taste and a functioning brain you'll like it, and especially so if you are an artist yourself because it gives you, not so much a comment or exploration (fast becoming a cliché in the critical world), but a feeling of art and the excesses to which artists willingly go for their art. This is why I have a feeling some critics didn't "get it." Critics too often calculate and add up too much to recognize their own feelings about a movie, and frequently judge a movie based on its adherence to a particular formula, but this movie tosses away a formula and creates its own impressionistic view of a situation, much like Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream.
There is an added bonus if you are an artist who has given themselves to a project and sacrificed something for it, because this movie shows you the extremes to which you can go for that feeling of having done your job to perfection. As an actor I sympathize mostly with Nina's desire to be perfect and to successfully fulfill her director's wishes, and I'm sure it would apply to so many other fields of creative art.
Make no mistake, it is a melodrama, and I would compare its tone to the books of Dostoevsky, only with less dialogue and more chaotic dance. It's really quite Russian, as ballet was embraced by the Russians more than many other countries, and let's face it, no one else has matched Fyodor's skill for introspective melodrama in any medium. The end result is that the tone and the subject seem made for each other. Nina is consumed by one zealous focus similar to Alexei Ivanovich, and the style added by Aronofsky's direction makes it totally his. The fast editing, mesmerizing dance choreography, and excellent score made me dizzy, and that was exactly the point.
But the one thing that made it truly great as opposed to a beautiful disaster was Natalie Portman. Good God, she gave herself to this role and jumped into the deep end. It's a lovely thing to see an actress these days with talents to match her beauty, and as evidenced in Leon, Natalie has always had talent, but she seemed to have left it at home for a while. Well, all her other roles were warmups compared to this. Paychecks to make it to this script. So haters gonna hate, but you will love or at least appreciate this movie if you let it take you away to another world, or in the case of this one, into someone's eff'd up but utterly fascinating mind. All who love art and good movies go see this now!