2011 Best Picture Nomination Countdown: #10 – 'Black Swan'

NOTE: This is the first in a series of ten reviews counting down this year’s best picture nominees from my least favorite to the film most deserving of this year’s Oscar.

Director Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan,” Natalie Portman plays Nina, a New York City ballerina who, age-wise, has reached the now or never point of her career. No longer a young ingénue, the window in which she can still achieve the greatness and artistic immortality she’s aspired to her whole life is rapidly closing and what could be her last opportunity looks to be as the lead in a new production of “Swan Lake.” Because Nina is truly gifted, a hard worker, and willing to do most anything, the dance troupe’s controlling and manipulative artistic director Thomas (Vincent Cassel), gives Nina the role but only after unceremoniously retiring Beth (Winona Ryder), his current star.

Nina’s desire to please and be liked makes her perfect for the White Swan, but this is a dual role. She must also play the Black Swan, which requires something Thomas has never seen in Nina, a dark, dangerous and manipulative side. What Thomas does see, however, is someone he can take advantage of. One of the perks of his job is that he is the god of this particular theatre and the lord over of a company of young, ambitious girls (with amazing bodies). His willingness to take full sadistic advantage of this situation is what makes him a both a loathsome human being and one of the very best at what he does.

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Nina goes to work, putting everything she can into every rehearsal, going so far as to injure herself at times. Distracting her is Erica (Barbara Hershey), her suffocating and neurotic mother. Once a notable ballerina herself, Erica is both Nina’s biggest cheerleader and desperately jealous of her own daughter’s success. There’s also Lily (the ridiculously fetching Mila Kunis), a new and talented addition to the troupe who seems to naturally inhabit the qualities necessary to a Black Swan. Nina is both threatened by and attracted to this potential rival and Thomas does everything in his power to encourage both emotions.

What you can see from this premise is how much potential the Best Picture nominee had. Unfortunately, the script is only interested in exploring the many well-worn cliches we’ve seen a dozen times before — not that anything could’ve saved the whole affair once the more bizarre elements kick in and the overwrought melodrama begins.

To be fair, my expectations might have hurt my overall opinion. Having seen it a few weeks after its release when all the critical gushing and awards acclaim had left their mark, at the very least I was expecting the story to move in new and different directions. That was a mistake. How many neurotic, passive-aggressive stage mothers have we seen like Hershey’s Erica? And has there ever been a dramatic film where the artistic director wasn’t a controlling, manipulator with a god complex? Meanwhile, a couple of potentially interesting characters get the short-shrift.

Winona Ryder is a superb actress and compelling screen presence who doesn’t get anything close to the parts she deserves and here, once again, she’s criminally under-used. And this is a terrible tease and letdown because exploring the character of a woman who has just had her stardom pulled out from under her could’ve been a truly fascinating subplot anchored by a truly fascinating actress. You also want to spend more time with Lily. Every time Kunis enters the frame the screen suddenly comes alive with vibrant personality and real star power.

Through no fault of her own, the film’s central problem is Portman, who’s likely to win the Best Actress Oscar for what is a dull, one-note performance. Nina is a character whose entire personae is permanently set on “anguish,” and watching Portman fret and worry for over two hours is nothing less than tedious. Furthermore, her whole dilemma is yet another cliche. The good girl having to find her darkside? This is a completely played out concept, especially in the genre of films surrounding the arts. Imagine how much more fresh and interesting the story would’ve been had these those roles been reversed, with the bad girl having to find the good in herself to inhabit the White Swan.

The other area in which you feel cheated is with all of Aronofsky’s overheated camera work. Portman and Kunis obviously worked hard to play credible ballerinas but you never get a real chance to see what they can do. Astaire and Kelly used to plant the tripod and dazzle you with their talent. Aronofsky wants to dazzle you with how the camera moves, not his actors. You spend so much effort trying to keep up with what it is you’re supposed to be looking at that after a time you just want to give up.

“Black Swan” is a film hard to take seriously, especially once the psycho-sexual machinations really start to take hold. The more bizarre the story gets, the more anguished Nina gets, the more you roll your eyes. It certainly doesn’t help that the “black and white” symbolism self-consciously screams out at you in almost every scene.

“Black Swan” is not only the least of the ten films nominated this year, it’s downright silly and just not very good.