Ballet dancers usually show little or no emotion when they're on stage. They must be saving it up for later, and when it all gets going, they turn into quite a group. This certainly is proven in "Black Swan," which opens today. Natalie Portman, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder, Mila Kunis and others shed their tutus and go off in all directions at once as Swan Lake turns into Bloody Lagoon and drama takes a holiday in favor of melodrama.
With lovely ballet sequences choreographed by Benjamin Millipied, who also dances, and some glorious cinematography by Matthew Libatique, it's a beautiful film, and director Darren Aronofsky keeps tension high, even if the story is quite predictable.
Portman, as Nina Sayers, is a driven young ballerina, with Mom (Barbara Hershey) behind the wheel. Sayers is talented and ambitious, with moves to rival those of Kansas' Gale. She's a company member, eager for the chance to dance the lead in the Tchaikovsky classic, which is being reworked by director Thomas (Vincent Cassel). But she's frightened of her mother, and of Thomas, and given to self-mutilation, peeling skin from her finger as if it were a ripe banana. In terms of self-abuse, and keeping thin, or perhaps just fear and tension, she also tends to deliberately vomit after meals.
Screenwriters Mark Haynes, Andres Heinz and John McLaughlin, working from Heinz' story, have worked the ballerina's delusions and fantasies into New York subway tunnels and aging apartments, even into Lincoln Center and Greenwich Village, and we bounce back and forth between dancers and demons, poltergeists and predators.
Of course, a prima ballerina must have a rival (White Queen vs. Black Queen in "Swan Lake"), and Portman finds one in Mila Kunis for another love-hate relationship, both in reality and in fantasy. Both actresses are quite powerful. Supposedly, Portman does a lot of her own dancing, and it looks pretty good. Hershey overacts to a fare-three-well, as does Cassel, who is playing his own games. Winona Ryder makes a brief appearance as a ballerina on her way out.
The story is occasionally tedious, sometimes sexual, but between talented director Darren Aronofsky and the beautiful Portman, the film has a lovely look and some fine acting, making it good holiday entertainment.
Black Swan opens today at the Plaza Frontenac
Tomorrow Joe reviews The Tourist and Tiny Furniture.