Intellectual Canary in the Coalmine

Rating: 3/10 (17 January 2011)

One thought occurred to me as this movie flailed and writhed out of control: the intellectual life of the United States is in deep, deep trouble. When this movie is the best that Hollywood has to offer anymore--and it IS head and shoulders above most movies coming out of Hollywood--then the world of (American) mainstream film is circling the drain in a very tight orbit, indeed.
This movie is the story of an anal-retentive dancer who has (under a lifetime of jealous pressure from her ex-dancer mother) become so obsessed with the idea of "perfection" that it has become intertwined with her quasi-lesbian sexuality. She displaces her resentment of her mother and her own flaws and repressed sexuality onto a lover/rival dancer and incorporates all of this psychological flotsam and jetsam into her upcoming role as the Black Swan in "Swan Lake." That all sounds very highbrow and interesting, I know, but I'm doing my very best to be diplomatic, here, and it really isn't.
The worst problem with this movie is the use of insultingly obvious special effects to explain to the dumb kids in the audience what is going on.
"Look! She's looking at HERSELF in another person!" "Look! Her legs are bending like a SWAN's! And she has WINGS!" "Look! Her rival is having sex with the Swan Prince!" And so on.
I'm of two very different minds on this movie. On the one hand, it's well-made. The lighting and scene composition are really exquisite. The special effects are spectacular. Some of the acting is even passable, though Natalie Portman lurches around like a mental patient on Thorazine.
The problem is that the plot is dreadful. It's hypersexual, unrealistically nasty and full of embarrassing clichés. The ballet director--and I'm not making this up--is an oversexed Frenchman who calls "his" girls things like "Little Princess." It really reminded me of "Showgirls" a lot. Ooh! Right! I got it! If you want a summary of this movie, here it is: Imagine "Showgirls." Now imagine that "Showgirls" has completed 30 hours of master's work in cinema and just drank a pot of coffee and was in the mood to talk. Except, instead of strippers, imagine ballet dancers. That's "Black Swan."
GRADE: C-. Things to look for: Winona Ryder chewing scenery, sudden lesbian sex, the director loses his mind.