Black Swan - Movie Review

It's December, which means that the Oscar movie season has officially begun. Most major studios wait until now to release their Oscar contending movies to a nationwide audience. The reason for this is simple, the fresher a movie is, the easier it will be to get votes for it. Released this weekend to national theaters was the film, "Black Swan."

The film focuses on a young ballet dancer who has been chosen to play the Swan Queen in a new production of "Swan Lake." If your like me, there is a good chance that you don't know the story of "Swan Lake." Fortunately, the movie takes a minute to explain the plot to those of us unfamiliar with the world of ballet. The Swan Queen must play the innocent white swan and the dark and sinister black swan. The dancer chosen to play the Swan Queen, portrayed by Natalie Portman, is portrayed as having perfect technique and is a great white swan, but cannot properly portray the black swan and has to get in touch with her inner bad girl.

Sounds like a simple enough premise with the opportunity for some great character development. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. The movie is a dark and raw journey about a dancer who has some serious mental health problems. The journey that she undertakes is incredibly unnerving and uncomfortable. At the end of the film I left not sure about what I just saw, but knowing that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The film was shot in a grainy shaky style, which the director, Darren Aronofsky, exploited to it's fullest extent to keep the audience guessing about what was happening. The film is full of little clues that give you an idea as to what might be happening and at the same time it put me on the edge of my seat for most of the movie. Not being a fan of ballet, I was releaved that the dance scenes where filled with enough dynamic shots and the sequences did not take away anything from the movie, a difficult task to accomplish.

Being a film that focuses on the journey of one character means that the actor playing the part has to be committed to it and able to pull off the part. And Natlie Portman pulls it off brilliantly. First portraying someone that has hard time being able to let go and be the black swan, and then finally taking that turn and becoming the black swan. She pulls it off perfectly. It is also nice to see Mila Kunis have a chance at portraying a role with some meat to it. I've always felt that she had more in her than she had been allowed to show and it was nice to be proven right.

"Black Swan" is not your typical character drama, it is a psychological thriller that will have you thinking about what you just watched. I left the theater feeling like I was on a roller coaster that hadn't reached a full stop before I got off. Once my mind was able to catch up, I realized that I had loved the ride I was just on. It gets 5 out of 5 stars.