Black Swan Review

Natalie Portman was pretty much perfect for — and is pretty much perfect in — “Black Swan.”

The story of a troubled, repressed young ballerina may not immediately seem like an ideal fit for one of the most famous, well-regarded movie stars in the world.

Portman plays Nina Sayers, a ballet dancer who slowly comes undone after earning the lead role in her company’s production of “Swan Lake.” The lead role in “Swan Lake” requires the dancer to inhabit both the regal and ethereal White Swan, as well as the dark and seductive Black Swan.

The fact that Nina is perfect in the White Swan role, but struggles mightily to channel her inner Black Swan is the reason this role seems tailor-made for Portman. Even though the actress has tried to tap into her dark side before — including earning an Oscar nomination for playing a stripper in “Closer” — it’s never entirely believable. No matter what Portman does, she can’t help but radiate intelligence and give off a good girl vibe. (She’s even poked fun at this image to hilarious effect.)

In watching “Black Swan” and in watching Portman’s career-best, transformative work (and I haven’t even gotten into the technical aspects of her performance as a dancer), I couldn’t help but feel that the movie was a sort of twisted version of “The Natalie Portman” story. (The fact that Nina becomes involved with her hilariously jerky and demanding director, played by Vincent Cassel, while Portman recently announced she was engaged to and pregnant by her “Black Swan” choreographer only made that feeling stronger.)

I’d say this was a coincidence if filmmaker Darren Aronofsky — one of the best directors working today — hadn’t pulled off a similar trick by having Mickey Rourke’s comeback and redemption mirror his character’s in “The Wrestler”, Aronofsky’s previous masterpiece.

His golden touch with casting doesn’t stop there. Mila Kunis is terrific and kind of a revelation as Lily, a fellow dancer who embodies everything Nina isn’t. Kunis is a welcome, friendly, and sexy presence in the film. (And I’m not just saying that because of her lesbian sex scene with Portman — I’m only 75% saying that because of her lesbian sex scene with Portman.) Barbara Hershey is just the right amount of bananas as Nina’s scary, clingy stage mom. Meanwhile, Winona Ryder (though she has only a handful of scenes) is perfectly cast as someone who used to be a big deal.

Genius/fluky casting aside, I expected Aronofsky to bring the same attention to detail he brought to the world of wrestling to the world of ballet, and he absolutely delivered. He shows us that ballet is incredibly demanding and even more than a little dangerous. From a more technical standpoint, the score (mostly a warped adaption of the music from “Swan Lake”) was incredible. It helped set the stage and didn’t require you having seen the original show to appreciate it. I also thought the way his and cinematographer Matthew Libatique’s camera spun around his dancers was thrilling, while his jittery, handheld work for other sequences helped put us in Nina’s paranoid state of mind.

Obviously, I’m a big fan of Aronofsky’s, but the man isn’t without faults.

A lot of the visual metaphors he uses in the movie are a little obvious and heavy-handed. (Nina has an almost exclusively white wardrobe, while Lily pretty much only wears black and has two black wings tattooed on her back.)

On top of that, even though Nina’s freaky visions are very effective for the occasional jolt, I’m not entirely sure a lot of the “what is real?” aspects of the script by Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz and John McLaughlin would hold up under close examination. That being said, I DID think they had some interesting things to say about the pursuit/perils of artistic perfection.

Still, the fact that the movie encourages you to go back and THINK about what you just saw is encouraging.

More importantly, “Black Swan” is an exciting, impressive movie featuring the best performance I’ve seen all year.

Black Swan…A-