The heavy weight of black swan feathers

Rating: 8/10 (13 February 2011)

"He picked me, mommy. I am the new swan queen!". With these childish words, Nina (Natalie Portman) announces to her mother Erica (Barbara Hershey) that she got the main part of Swan Lake and was chosen the new prima ballerina of the company after star Beth (Winona Ryder) is forced to retire, giving space for fresh talent.
After Pi (1998), Requiem for a Dream (2000) and the Wrestler (2008), Darren Aronofsky's undeniably talent is shown again in Black Swan (2010). The incorporation of music in unexpected moments (courtesy of Clint Mansell), the sound of dance steps that the audience doesn't really hear, the anxious camera and Nina's heavy breathing set the tone for her journey into despair. But the plot sometimes disappoints the viewer.
In 4 years of dancing, as we learn, Nina was always too pristine and goody two-shoes in her ballet practice and relationship with her mother. She whispers instead of talking, lives in a pink room full of stuffed animals and wears girlish light coloured clothes and small earrings taken off by her mother before she goes to bed. She is insecure and carries herself with a self-conscious, sad image and is always leaky eyed, somehow like Lea Michelle playing Rachel in Glee. She is too unconvincing to play Odile, the Black Swan. Somebody like that, perfect only for the part of Princess Odette, the White Swan, would never win the lead for Swan Lake in a high powered NYC ballet troupe.
Lily (Mila Kunis), on the other hand is the mysterious girl that wears black, has a gigantic tattoo, wears her hair down, smokes, drinks, takes drugs, doesn't show up on time for the rehearsals and does need to warm up. Really? That is not what ballet demands. And she is still chosen as Nina's alternate? Was she really such a rebel or was Nina imagining her behaviour as something she wanted to have: a loose, sensual side. Either way, forget the Mila Kunis that played That 70's Show and dubs Meg on the controversial cartoon Family Guy. She is pretty convincing as the two-faced girl that is trying to backstab Nina.
That obviously is nothing like the clash between Bette Davis and Anne Baxter we watched in the classic movie All About Eve (1950). Still, Natalie performs with such agony that you just know something bad is gonna happen to that poor girl. Nina's desperation for perfection makes her paranoid. In the subway, she sees herself in the reflection of the door and her face is as dark as her soul. Her fight is against the fact that everyone still thinks of her as an immature, "frigid" little girl. The scene everyone was talking about, when she transforms into the black Swan, has more merit from Portman than CGI. Her body language changes completely and her eyes get a deep and intense look. It is the death of innocence.
But Nina doesn't exactly transforms during the story. She is already anguished, broken and disturbed. Nina is bulimic, sexually repressed, hurts herself and we discover that she has a little bit of a kleptomaniac inside of her, when she steals Beth's belongings. By the way, it was very amusing to watch a shocked Winona Ryder, quite a few years after she got caught shoplifting, saying "you stole my things?".
Even thought Portman could carry the character very well, who steals the scenes are Vicent Cassel and Barbara Hershey. The movie is definitely worth its supporting roles. He plays the womanizer director Thomas Leroy and the scene when he seduces Nina on stage reminded me of John Malkovich as the charming Sébastien in Dangerous Liaisons (1988). Barbara Hershey reminded me a little bit of Margaret White the disturbed mother of Carrie (1976) with her controlling and suffocating behavior.
All in all, it is very entertaining to watch Nina's struggle for perfection against a tormented nature trapped in an infantile mind. The movie is a trip into the uneasy world of jealousy and pressure that goes on in the backstage of a theater and the fact that some of us are not fit for that. It is about the death of a sweet girl that obsesses in the passion of her work. The dark atmosphere is impeccably constructed. Thumbs up.
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