Susan Granger’s review of “Black Swan” (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
This macabre, psychosexual thriller could be on the Academy’s list as Best Picture nominee, while Natalie Portman is in the forefront for an Oscar nod in the Best Actress category as the fragile ballerina.
Ambitious Nina (Portman) has been dutifully performing minor roles in a New York City ballet company for most of her life. So when the lecherous artistic director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) decides to replace prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder) in “Swan Lake,” the opening production of the new season, he chooses Nina, who has been infantilized by her demanding, overprotective, retired-dancer mother Erica (Barbara Hershey). However, with the arrival of Lily (Mila Kunis), a new ballerina, Nina suddenly has competition. While disciplined perfectionist Nina is proficient at the White Swan’s innocence and grace, uninhibited Lily is more adept at the seductive sensuality epitomized by the Black Swan. As their rivalry for the coveted dual role escalates, Nina and Lily form a bizarre friendship, propelling Nina into hallucinatory madness as she explores her darker, self-destructive side.
Evoking memories of poignant Moira Shearer in “The Red Shoes,” writers Mark Heyman, Andrew Heinz and John McLaughlin, led by auteur director Darren Aronofsky (“The Wrestler,” “Pi,” “Requiem for a Dream”), delineate Nina’s melodramatic inner turmoil with bold, extravagant intensity. Curiously, Aronofsky compares her travails to Mickey Rourke’s in “The Wrestler,” noting in the press notes: “Some people call wrestling the lowest of art forms, and some call ballet the highest of art forms, yet there is something elementally the same…They’re both artists who use their bodies to express themselves and they’re both threatened by physical injury, because their bodies are the only tool they have for expression.”
Natalie Portman delivers a supple, gripping performance, striking not a single false note as she explores a highly combustible mixture of emotions, delving so deeply into her character you can almost feel her nerve endings. Barbara Hershey and Mila Kunis offer superb support.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Black Swan” is a suspenseful, tantalizing 9, a dazzling, harrowing tale.
