What's the big deal? (A regular guy's review of Black Swan)

Rating: Null/10 (19 August 2011)

Be wary, fellow viewers. All that is flashy and over-hyped is NOT gold.
This is not the great movie that it has been made out to be in the reviews. It's not a BAD movie as such, it just isn't a masterpiece as some would have you think. Maybe it's the details of Natalie Portman's training in ballet that have people ooh-ing and ah-ing. Maybe it's the fact it's directed by Darren Aranofsky, a man who's undoubtedly a flavor of the moment. Maybe it's just the fact that a lot of women really, REALLY like ballet. I don't know.
But to this reviewer, Black Swan came off as trite and pretentious. This is a story that's been told before, and better. And about subject matter that will probably appeal to a greater audience. Did I mention this movie is about ballet? Because it is. About 85% so, in fact. So, if you're one of the many people out there who are about as interested in ballet as you are in the lichen-per-square meter count of a cave system under Norway, you'll probably spend a good deal of this movie wondering what the fuss is about.
The director has clearly put a lot of effort into making sure that the theme of main character Nina's inner turmoil runs deep throughout this movie, but it's almost as if he was so focused on this theme that he forgot about little things like pacing, execution and style. The camera work is particularly annoying, filmed in that familiar 'shaky-cam' style to impress a sense of discord and turmoil to the viewer, but ultimately, you just wish they'd hold the damn camera still. The dialogue is wooden and forgettable and the characters seem fairly one-dimensional and cliché: all the cast is here - the incredibly high pressure and high maintenance mother, the authoritarian Boss who's constantly hitting on Nina, and even Nina herself fits into the 'not-quite-perfect' princess mold... Being able to display differing shades of 'distraught' doesn't make for an award-winning performance. In fact, it's just tiring to watch. Also, and this may just be the acting of Natalie Portman, but the scenes that were overtly sexual or violent in nature seemed completely out of place. We don't see any progression into these outbursts of intense emotion, no slow downward spiral or anything like that, they just HAPPEN, as if the director felt the need to grab you by your ears and scream into your face: "HEY! SHE'S GOING CRAZY! DO YOU GET IT YET?!?"
And again, this reviewer can't stress enough the point about how you WILL have to at least be interested in ballet to watch this film, because that's all there is at stake here: a good opening night performance. That is essentially the only tangible obstacle that Nina faces in this entire movie. And the film emphasizes this point by dedicating the vast majority of the time on screen to discussing various ballet-related backstory and other ballet-related plot developments. By the time Nina's character finally DOES start to show some signs of 'cracking up', you almost welcome it, if only for those precious few seconds where you won't be listening to more ballet-related trivia.
While there are some effective scares, and some special effects worthy of mention, really, this film rides entirely on the viewers interest in a particular lifestyle (ballet) - if you are one of the many women who's ever dreamed of being a ballet dancer, then that's probably you. The rest, however, probably won't understand why they just spent 108 minutes watching a film about a woman stressing over her ballet performance.
Nobody is saying ballet isn't hard, it surely is. But if an astronaut can handle a very real risk of dying every time they're called into duty, it's kind of difficult to relate to a story about a ballet dancer who simply can't handle 'the pressure', even if she IS a headcase. 4/10