Movie Review: "Black Swan"

We interrupt your regularly-scheduled posting (creative writing exercises, which I'll pick back up tomorrow) to bring you this movie review.

Natalie Portman deserves any nomination she gets for "Black Swan." I would say that based solely on her transformation into an actual ballerina alone, but her mental/emotional portrayal of her character - though not as impressive as the physical - was nothing to sneeze at. The woman got down to 89 pounds, trained for 10 months and literally BECAME a ballerina. Amazing.

Her character is Nina Sayers, a core company member of the New York Ballet who dreams of being chosen to play the Swan Queen in the company's upcoming production of "Swan Lake." The problem is, the director wants his queen to play both the sweet, virginal White Swan and the seductive, dark Black Swan. If he was casting only the White Swan, he tells Nina, she would be it. He doesn't see the lusty, confident Black Swan in her at all. Lily, a new company member (Mila Kunis) from San Francisco, has all the lusty confidence in the world, but not Nina's precision-perfect technique. When Nina sees the director eyeing Lily, she begins to see Lily as her competition (along with the rest of the women in the company, whom she doesn't seem to have any sort of friendships with.)

The director (played by Vincent Cassel, I should have mentioned) ends up choosing Nina for the Swan Queen, and suddenly all the pressure of the world is on her shoulders. The other girls hate her. Lily tries to be her friend, but Nina doesn't trust her. Nina's mom, a former dancer herself, is living vicariously through her daughter, controlling her every move and clearly resenting her daughter for being conceived and ending her own ballet career. The director continues to tell her she's not capturing the spirit of the Black Swan. All Nina wants is to be perfect. It all begins to take its toll.

Nina begins seeing things. Hearing things. Imagining things that she thinks are real. It's hard to tell if they are or not. Are these things she wants or that she fears? Is she crazy or on the brink of crazy? Are the people around her really out to get her or is it all in her head?

I think the answer is "yes" to all of the above.

I used to dance. Not at that level by any means, but competitively enough to understand the pressure of perfection. And of a director pitting you against your teammates because he/she wants to push you to your best performance. And of being scrutinized every time you eat. And the exhaustion of it seeming like no matter what you do, it's never EVER enough.

"Black Swan" takes those feelings and actions to an extreme level. Some of the happenings, whether they are actually happening or not, are over-the-top. But I went with it, because the underlying feeling - that loss of control, that desperateness for approval, that exhaustion - is very basic and very real.

You'll be disturbed when you leave the theater. I was, at least. Maybe it's because I was watching from a dancer's perspective. And I can easily see how losing it like that could happen. For non-dancers, it might be simply unsettling. Like that feeling you get when you've driven from one place to another and can't seem to actually remember getting there.