Poor Odette...Poor Odile...

Rating: 6/10 (6 December 2010)

An anonymous NYC ballet company takes on a bold new interpretation of 'Swan Lake'. Unfortunately, the production, aside from some visually arresting moments, is anything but. The fact that Mr. Aronofsky, whom I greatly admire, was unable to deliver even a simulacrum of a new swan experience may be at the heart of why the film falters.
Having been a dancer myself, I am reflexively attracted to all things dance but even the hypnotic effect of Tchaikovsky's music couldn't save the film. Aronofsky uses the mirror image both as a visual device and as a plot device but in neither case is he able to get past surface reflection. Where in the 'Wrestler' and even in 'Requiem" he deftly navigates the 'mind' field of human weakness, strength, depravity, longing, and loneliness, here there are only incoherent fragments. Nina (our protagonist) is a woman whose age I continue to wonder about. The room she occupies, in her overbearing mother's apartment, remains prepubescent and it's highly likely that this very beautiful woman/child is still a virgin who has never even masturbated. It's not that this scenario is completely implausible but it's disturbed enough to need some substantiation. Perhaps Aronofsky has only a two dimensional view of women and their interests portraying them as strippers with hearts, prostitutes with hearts and in this case childlike, suicidal 'little princesses' with hearts.
Though Ms. Portman gives it her best, and I applaud the effort, I keep thinking that this movie would have been more credible if he had chosen to work with an actual mid-level, aspiring ballerina. I believe we would have forgiven unpolished acting for the more authentic experience. Actually, I've never been a fan of Ms. Portman's and Darren surely leaves her in a lurch with this wafer thin study of an emotionally stunted and psychologically complex character that is well beyond this actresses ability to make coherent. That said, I enjoyed Barbara Hershey's performance, and found myself thinking, "I've missed her", more than once during the showing. It doesn't seem worth mentioning any of the other performances.
There are some thrilling visual effects throughout but a few too many trite mirror phantoms that, unfortunately, overshadow the truly awe inspiring transformation of Nina/Odette into a black swan in the third act.
Sadly, over it's entirety, the film lacks arc and believability, and I very much wanted to swoon over this film.