Wow....and not in a good way...What the...???

Rating: 4/10 (17 February 2011)

You can't go anywhere without hearing about Black Swan. Reviewers on here say "Perfect", "A Nightmarish Brilliant Piece", "the best movie of the year" and it seems destined to score Academy Awards especially for its star. Even my 75 year old father loved it so I thought it was just going to be spectacular. It stared out promising enough making me cringe at the brutal lengths the determined dancer goes through and then it started to make me cringe at how terrible it was turning out to be. Black Swan in my honest opinion was absolute garbage. It was one of those artsy movies that I hate more because everyone loves it because its the 'In thing' to do. Yes the film is unique, gritty, twisted, and dark but it just continually makes you scratch your head and laugh out loud at the sheer absurdity of the film. I looked around at the other theatre goers who were enthralled and devastated by the emotion and I wanted to start laughing because the film is so completely absurd, it isn't emotion, its silly. Maybe there was a lot of expectation going into this but I hope to never see this film again. It aims for shocking and the only thing shocking is how much everyone loves it.
Natalie Portman gives a solid performance. She is probably the sole reason I managed to squeeze a 4/10 for this film. But Portman is a great actress. Her descent into madness is silly but her performance is honest and she really does a good job handling the insanity. Mila Kunis is doing a good job breaking out her career although she seems to struggle finding the right role. Her role in this film is not a big stretch for her. I think its probably pretty close to her true personality as far as being strong and outspoken. Really she is a more mature 'Jackie' (her character from That Seventies Show.) Her and Portman don't have great chemistry and while Portman is giving this role her all, Kunis is far too laid back. Vincent Cassel also gives a solid performance as the dictating and disturbing Ballet director. Cassel has good chemistry with Portman and gives probably the second best performance in the film. Unfortunate given how disturbingly stupid the movie is. Barbara Hershey could be good, in fact she does raise the standard of the cast but then some of the bizarre twists in her behaviour makes it even stranger. What's with the breakdown over the cake? She's just odd. In true Winona Ryder style as of late she shows up in an odd cameo showing plenty of twisted emotion but its too late to redeem her performance in the film.
Some people will say that I didn't 'get' this movie and I do get it. Portman's character's emotional crash reflects that of the Swan Queen in Swan Lake as she pushes herself to a breakdown. I also know that Darren Aronofsky is not known for run of the mill mainstream films although I have only seen a couple of his films. How scary is it that he's tied to direct the next Wolverine film? The cold hard fact of this film is that there is too much bizarre and absurd all thrown in at once. It comes at you like a freight train. You're watching this dancer who is so insanely driven to be perfect and then suddenly...visions, scratching open her skin, paintings moving, drug hallucinations, murder, suicide...it just is overwhelming. I suppose because so many are raving and critics are in love that film fans should go see this but for me this was simply a huge waste of time. Given the sexual tones of the film it isn't even gratuitous. I'll be crossing my fingers for the academy to bypass this one because there has to be better films this year! Although I don't suppose Jason Statham will ever get nominated. 4/10