Character study without character

Rating: 5/10 (30 December 2010)

I went into this movie with no expectations other than knowing some Aronovsky films and liking them. I didn't see any trailers so I was really happy to jump into a film without any serious preconceived notions.
I do have some spoilers in here to stop now if you don't want to know anything!
I have to say that I really enjoyed the acting and the story both - the problem I had was the way it was told. The lines of the story are already laid out in the title of the movie and it doesn't deviate an inch from what your initial, most obvious conclusion would be. That in itself wouldn't be a big deal if, through this journey elements of the character are revealed, illuminated somehow but again, nothing seems to expand on the initial character we see in the first several minutes. Instead all I saw was variant portrayals of her particular psychosis each more dramatic and vulgar than the last but providing no different perspective. Like watching a slide show of anonymous personal injuries. These moments just upset us and then move along leaving an empty feeling.
After a while the "watch-out-behind-you"or "see-you-imagined-it" scenes get really tiresome and are better left to the Final Destinations and Grudge's of moviedom. What starts out with genuine tension and disturbing curiosity as to what exactly is going on (her rash, the hallucinations of herself) seems to just continually repeat itself without any purpose other than to shock. I like shock just not when its trying so hard to be meaningful (or seeming to).
So you have over-use of shock value (she hallucinates and then wonders - did that happen? REPEATEDLY AGAIN AND AGAIN OK. we get it.) Pile that on with the obvious metaphor of the production of the Black Swan which in and of itself is groovy, the two stories paralleling each other but when you couple the horror shock aspect with the uber-dramatized story within a story of the Black Swan coupled with seriously dramatic music (great music but so much overkill for an abundantly dramatic story and story-telling style) it all just becomes too much wherein some points I felt became unintentionally funny because I was just hit too many times in the head with the shock-hammer. Part of this was likely do to poor shot choice eg.(pivotal scene in Nina's dressing room between Acts) - it was just plain silly, like watching some monster movie - off-camera monster drags off its kill.
I think had any one of these elements been played with a bit more subtlety, perhaps the soundtrack, a reduced amount of repetitive hallucinations and/or shocking grossness (and I love gory movies but even the gore-masters know when and how to do it) or play down the actual parallels a bit more so we are not constantly reminded of how she is just like the Black Swan, then this could have been a good movie.
It just seemed like a director who became too enamoured with his ideas and decided to let them all loose in one film and it unfortunately become a ham-fisted disappointment albeit with great acting.
I would actually give it a 6.5 but I feel it deserves a lower rating simply because my expectations went from positive to very positive as I was watching it only for me to helplessly watch the movie circle the drain along with its main character. Bummer.