All About Ms. Swan

Rating: 8/10 (24 December 2010)

Yep, everyone's talking all about Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers in 2010's Black Swan. For that, I will put three of my two cents in:
1. She was, in fact, very good and will be nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. 2. But, as good as she was, one of my votes goes to Kunis as Lily. 3. And my other vote goes to Annette Bening for The Kids Are All Right. Sorry, little miss Princess Padmé.
But, what about the movie? Did you like the Bette Davis classic All About Eve?
Okay, it's not exactly like that, or I might be spoiling too much, but it fits the same lines. In this case, we have ballerinas who prove it's NOT easy being black. (Uh, that's a reference to the Swanin case you were thinking of calling me a racist.)
We have two aging dancers, the disturbed mom, Erica (Hershey), of Nina and the recipient of the Drama Queen award: Beth (Ryder). And we have two dueling and somewhat "friendly" up'n'comers Lily and Nina. Fine, Lily's not so up'n'coming, but she's certainly coming at times. Bad. Sorry. This is a SERIOUS review of a SERIOUS movie.
I digress. Nina wants the role-of-the-present, the Swan Queen, playing dual roles of the good white swan and her evil twin, the darkie. Oops. Sorry. Anyways, she has to fight tooth and nail – mostly teeth, which has bite – to get it. Is she really ready? Will director Thomas (Cassel) let her have it or will he prepare her to be perfect?
Nina has multiple issues on her own, SEE: not just disturbed but delusional mommy, but when Meg (Kunis) from Family Guy shows upall hell breaks down for Nina. No wonder no one likes Meg.
The question arises if Nina will make it to the final act and will her bloody aliments (or peers) stand in her way.
Overall, I did like the look and feel of the movie. The score's pretty good and the acting is near perfect. And it's gruesome at times – yeah, I had to look away, even though it wasn't the grossest scenes I've witnessed. But there are really only two reasons to see this: the magnificent performance by Kunis and the very good job from Portman, especially in the last third – that was Portman at her best.
Oh, okay, if you're a horny dude, you'll add a third reason: the sex scene between both those ladies. Blah, blah, did nothing for me, but if you into that sorta lesbo scene – it's really hot and heavy.for less than a minute.