Mini Movie Review: Black Swan

[cyranothe2nd]

  Went and saw this movie Sunday night and it was...good. A good thriller with a truly superb performance by Natalie Portman (after the movie, I turned to Ryan and said, "Wow, she really *is* an actress. Guess this makes up for 'V for Vendetta'?). The problem I have with the movie is two-fold: 1. It relies a bit of the horror/thriller schtick, with the crazy music and things jumping out at you (this was especially hilarious when Nina, the main character, tries to masturbate and is getting really into it when suddenly the music goes all wonky and she discovers that her mother is sleeping on the chair next to her bed DUN DUN DUN!) and 2. that the movie never gives you the tools to figure out what was real and what was in Nina's head. Not that this is a bad thing, necessarily, but there's a difference between movies like 'Inception,' that you have to think about and watch over and over again for little clues, and movies like this, where no matter how many times you watch or think about it, you will never know because the director didn't want you to know. That annoys me because, for me, it means that there a certain contempt for the audience implicit in it. Or maybe my atheist heart rebels at "It's a mystery." Either way, the movie didn't work for me on that level.

So, Portman can act and she deserves the accolades she's getting for this role. But the movie itself, while entertaining and titillating, fails to deliver fully on it's promise.

B+