Disaster

Rating: 1/10 (5 January 2011)

Maybe this goes over well with people who never saw "The Red Shoes" or "Turning Point", or any other ballet films, but for those of us over 30, "Black Swan" is the most heavy-handed, cliché-ridden soap opera in years.
First, in case you don't get that Nina is ultra pure, she wears pink or fluffy white (like feathers)in every shot. She even has a bedroom full of stuffed animals, emphasizing her childlike virginity.
Second, her nemesis, well-played by Mila Kunis, wears dark colors, loose hair, and appears to have black swan wings tattooed on her back....got it yet?
There are oh-so-discreet shots of Nina's feet facing the toilet so we know she's bulimic.
It seems the producers wouldn't allow her to be a "cutter". Instead she scratches, including in her sleep. I guess it's possible, but her scratches are long and vertical, paralleling the BACK of her bra strap. Try to make that motion; it's right up with kissing your elbow. She tells her overbearing mother "it's a rash".
It's Ballet-Mom-From-Hell, a former dancer whose behavior is so over the top as to be laughable, even trying to get her daughter to stop talking to a friend by saying dinner's getting cold, and sleeping in a chair in her daughter's room.
The same over-the-top can be said for the ballet-master, whose lust for the women in the company is unprecedented, to say the least.
Ms. Portman was indeed very thin. She managed "swan arms" decently. No one expected to see her en pointe, or doing the famous 32 fouette turns, but the camera never even shot her below the bustline as she danced. In fact, it seemed that 2/3 of the film was either close-ups of her face or shots of her hair bun as she walked away from the camera. (Whoever did the dancing in the longshots was excellent.)
Balletically, this is a revisionist "Swan Lake". Every ballet book has the story if you don't know it. Apparently the only reason for the revision was to create a death scene at the end. Gore galore.
This film can't make up its mind if it is a romance (lesbian or straight), horror, or fantasy.
The only award should be for the black swan makeup.
Oh yes...DON'T take the kids, especially if they study ballet.