"Scream" if you're feeling pretentious

Rating: 4/10 (16 April 2011)

Like "Requiem for a Dream", also by Darren Aronofsky, "Black Swan" is superficial entertainment masquerading as profound psychological analysis. It's stylish, it has the kind of "scary" effects that belong in a teen slasher movie, it is often gross, and it doesn't go anywhere. Which would be okay, if this were an actual teen slasher movie. But it isn't. The Black Swan is humorless and pretentious, and to make matters worse, it's intellectually dishonest. Only a very cynical director would use symptoms of auto-mutilation, anorexia and schizophrenia haphazardly as "devices" to freak out an audience. (Not to mention the mandatory lesbian sex scene!)
Portman, an actress I've always considered to be somewhat of a quality assurance, delivers her worst role here, looking flat and freaked out for 100 minutes. High-stakes ballet is a stressful environment, but every great performer loses that stress on stage. Not the Portman character. She gets the main role without any hint she can handle it. Or was it all supposed to be one big hallucination?
I guess I should draw my own conclusions: I'm not a fan of Aronofsky. I predict future generations will forget the hype and will consider this movie one of the weaker "landmark" movies of the '10s.