Not the second coming

Rating: 4/10 (28 December 2010)

Banal, pretentious and colossally over-rated.
As a big fan of Aronofsky's work I felt horribly let down by this tedious example of style over substance which appears to plumb the psychological depths of a paddling-pool while claiming it to be the Marianas trench.
Being positive, I guess the word I would use to describe the film overall is competent (which is of course also a veiled criticism), but lacking in the trancendence necessary to elevate it into the realm of being something special. The treatment of mental illness for example seems to oscillate between the agonisingly insufficient and the cleverly understated.
Portman's performance is likewise competent and effectively conveys a sense of growing fragility. In doing so however she breaks little new ground, the character portrayal is one I would expect any actress worth her salt to be able to pull off and is certainly nothing we haven't seen before.
All in all the story is one of a neurotic, obsessive, fairly repressed individual fraying at the seams and having a bit of a breakdown in a particularly anti-climatic fashion.
Not a bad film by any means but also falling far short of the brilliance for which it is being touted by salivating critics.
(Addendum: The Y chromosome in me insists that I mention the sublimity of Portman and Kunis' scenes together for obvious and massively chauvinistic reasons!)