Anything stupendous is worthy of admiration

Rating: 6/10 (29 December 2010)

...including stupidity. For two-thirds of this movie I was thinking "this is a stupid movie;" about one-third was genuinely mesmerizing. The main theme is best reflected in the choreographer's remark to the heroine early in the film "You must kill the sweet girl Nina in order to play the Black Swan." There was a brilliant film in here somewhere, in the intersection between the plot of the ballet "Swan Lake" and the contemporary story of rivalry among would-be prima ballerinas, but this wasn't it, unfortunately--although all the components were there. The evil sorcerer's magic spell is cast through alcohol spiked with "Ecstasy;" Prince Charming and Svengali intersect.
The film's aesthetic sense is one more likely to appeal to aficionados of horror films than those expecting a logic more typical of psychological thrillers: taut it ain't. We know that not everything is beautiful at the ballet from the dancers' point of view, but neither do the conflicts behind the scenes amount to mythological tales of good and evil. It doth make me mad.