Director Darren Aronofsky delivers a film that begins as an odd duckbefore transforming into a brilliant swan. Natalie Portman gives an Oscar-worthy performance as Nina, a repressed ballerina whose every-little-girl’s-dream is to land the lead role in a ballet. When she’s offered the prized part of the Swan Queen in Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake,” her whip-cracking company director, Thomas (Vincent Cassel), tells her this will be a different version – raw, stripped-down and emotional. Traditionally, the ballerina who plays the pure and tragic white swan, Odette, also plays the wicked seductress Odile, the black swan. But can Nina embody both? The short answer is no. As the white swan Nina is flawless, innocent, a self-consuming over-achiever…but as the black swan – her lustful twin – she’s frigid and frightened where she ought to be passionate and sexual. Nina lives in a world of self-mutilation (much like Mickey Rourke in Aronofsky’s last film,The Wrestler). She has red rashes on her back where swan wings might grow, and she peels the skin from her fingers until they bleed. Aronofsky’s vision – the fluidity of the dancers, the demands, the bound toes, the emaciated features – is at once disturbing and inviting, beckoning us to explore a world we wouldn’t have otherwise known. Lily (Mila Kunis) is Nina’s nemesis and friend, introducing her to a world of sex, drugs and rock & roll – she’s the ultimate black swan predator.Winona Ryder portrays the older prima ballerina, now washed up and forced to retire, though her career is the shining example Nina wants to emulate. Barbara Hershey plays Nina’s demanding and suffocating mother, who expects her daughter to be disciplined 24/7, keeping her room girly-frilly, surrounding her with stuffed animals. Portman has been a sexy nymph in other films, so we might anticipate what eventually happens to this unstable little creature. (Remember her in Closer and The Other Boleyn Girl.) The film is hypnotic, mesmerizing, head-spinning – this isn’t your mother’s Turning Point. And it keeps us wondering where reality ends and fantasy begins – that is, until the very last scene, when we fade to black. “Black Swan” is incredibly dark, but so rich and exciting that you come out of the theatre on a high.Four tiaras
