Madness through perfection

Rating: 8/10 (4 April 2011)

When a highly motivated ballet dancer wins the part she has been hunting for for so long she's happy as can be. Driven by a strive for perfection she trains hard in hopes to please her mentor. But is she ready for this kind of pressure with on the one side her lust for peer recognition and on the other side the need to escape the smothering of her mother? This film starts out looking like a fairy tale with all the standard characters - the somewhat naive princess, the overbearing mother, the jealous sisters, the bright unobtainable future at the horizon. As it rolls on it does not stray far from that path - in fact it follows much of the structure of the theatre play it encompasses. It is this structure that makes it a very interesting film - the pace is right, the tale is compelling and believable and most of the characters are in place.
The film starts off pretty dark and grows darker with every passing minute - biased around its lead player it depicts her madness with a pinpointed finesse, with everyone else revolving around her in an intricate dance. My hats off to Portman who plays the role of her life in this one. One tiny peeve to be had is the pained look she carries right from the start though - I guess the choice was made to have her character live her life as a tragic one, but in my eyes it could have done better by being slightly more optimistic at the start.
8 out of 10 swans dancing