I won’t go so far as to call BLACK SWAN a turkey…but I will say it didn’t impress me as much as it did Oscar voters or most mainstream critics. Natalie Portman gives a blistering performance that deserves all the praise she’s received…but (SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!) you pretty much know she’s nuts when the movie starts so there aren’t any real surprises. And okay! We get it! Black Swan=bad, White Swan=good, stop reminding us of that every 10 minutes!! Swan feels like a companion piece to last year’s THE WRESTLER, which also gave us a character hellbent on self destruction for the love of his sport. That movie was more subtle but I thought worked better.
This one seems to be trying too hard. While I admired the look of this one and thought it was interesting to see the hard work these dancers go through, Swan doesn’t soar. A good movie. Not a great one.
-Stormy Curry