Intense and Watchable - But not for the Faint Hearted!

Rating: 8/10 (8 March 2011)

A lot has been said and written about this movie. A lot good and a lot of it bad. I was unsure of what to expect and did it surprise me? The answer is a resounding yes.
Acting:Top notch. Ms Portman does this one to the hilt. Does not hold anything back. This adds to the intensity of the film. Whether it is her emaciated back, or her stressed out face,her roughly cut nails or her bruised toes, the physical ardor she endures, is remarkable, and none of it looks like acting. I winced every time she did, cried out in anguish every time she fell, exulted when she completes the final act! It is her film and her film alone, so much so, she must have had 90% of the camera time to herself. The rest of the cast did their jobs well, Cassel as Thomas, the brilliant but exploitative boss, Mila as the liberated fun loving soul from SFO, Barbara Hershey as Nina's obsessive mother, who has nothing better to do than to keep her daughter under surveillance.
Direction, Script and Editing: Aronovsky's direction makes the film very real. The tight editing never let me off the hook, and I groaned in exasperation when the interval was forced. The camera work is amazing, although the gritty, hand-held camera made me giddy at times. Am not a big fan of hand-held stuff, though it has to be mentioned, the frames were composed beautifully. The only real color used was red, be it the smudged lipstick stolen by Nina, or the blood oozing out of her fingers and toes. Towards the end, when Nina is alone at the studio, practicing and the lights go out, the shot where Nina is searching for the light man, highlighted by just a single stage light in silhouette, is amazing. That being said, I have seen remarkably gritty films (Thin Red Line, No Man's Land etc), without the surfeit of violence and stomach turning shots used here, (skin peeling, nail cutting, face stabbing). At times the film descended into the macabre, and I felt like I was watching a House of Wax sequel! The film could have done without these cheap quirks to elicit audience squeals.
Story: The story line is powerful, and it is almost like watching the ballet live, where I could visualise the transformation from the pristine white to the dark, seductive black in Nina's character. However, barring a few twists, once I got hang of the director's portrayal, the story was predictable.
All in all, a good watch. Portman's performance, the music, the story make it a memorable watch (you feel like you are watching a thriller with a well defined climax), managing to transcend the grittiness portrayed. However, it is too real for comfort sometimes, and the rest of the cast dwindle into oblivion, towards the end like dewdrops evaporating in the heat of the final act.