A very good film, but definite room for improvement.

Rating: 7/10 (28 January 2011)

Half an hour ago I finished watching this movie and was left with the same feeling I had after watching Requiem for a Dream: pretentious director makes another pretentious film. However, now that I have thought about it and had time to analyse it in my head I can appreciate that this film was actually really good.
I find Aronofsky's films to be fairly pretentious and unbelievable. As a photography student, my teachers are always stressing how important it is when you're trying to produce a series or a single photo that you don't want to spell out the meaning behind your work and that you want the audience to do a bit of guesswork, and I think that is what Aronofsky has done in Black Swan. He didn't leave enough to the imagination. The part towards the end where Portman's arms are literally morphing into the wings of the black swan made me think 'well duh', I mean did he really have to put that in there? I just thought that Portman's portrayal of the evil swan was definitely enough for the audience to see that she was becoming that character. What I'm trying to say is that he made things too literal, this film was meant to be about Nina's obsession and her growing insanity, what is real and what isn't, and everything was being spelt out to the audience too literally in my opinion.
I also didn't think the way he went about making it a thriller was very UNoriginal, one minute she sees things the next she doesn't, a very overused horror film technique. I'm just glad that he didn't go and make Mila Kunis' character a figment of the imagination, then this movie would've got a 3/10 from me! Also the whole mixing up of reality, one minute she has killed Mila Kunis' character, the next she is alive was fairly stupid, and I was left feeling confused about whether the director wanted the audience to be as confused and messed up as Nina, or if we were meant to know what was going on. Some of the horror scenes (Winona Ryder's in particular) I felt were a bit ridiculous as well. The movie had potential to be stellar I just think the plot had quite a few flaws.
The pros: the acting was literally amazing, Portman and Kunis blew me away, although I have always thought that Portman is a fantastic actress. The build up of tension between them was fantastic, and both of them were really suited to the characters they portrayed.
The reason this film gets a higher rating for me is basically for the acting, if that had not been so good I probably would've given it a 5-6/10. It is definitely worth seeing the film, just don't set your standards too high based on all the rave reviews it is getting.