Natalie Portman surrenders herself in Darren Aronofsky’s psycho-sexual thriller Black Swan. In a film of many superlatives, it is Portman who catapults it to greatness with her best performance ever.
Ballerina Nina Sayers has sacrificed her childhood, her mind, body and soul to the dance. Of late, she is keenly focused on the coveted Swan Queen role in Swan Lake. Slavishly supporting Nina is her mother, former ballerina Barbara Hershey (stupendous here).
Portman won the Oscar for Best Actress, as well as Golden Globe, Spirit and Screen Actors Guild awards for this role.
Black Swan swept the Spirit Awards, winning for Best Feature, Best Cinematography and Best Director.
In his new production, ballet director Thomas Leroy (ever driving Vincent Cassel) has raised the bar. The lead must play both the White and Black swans. Nina can play the virginal White Swan in a heartbeat, Leroy says. Can she manage her seductive, lascivious counterpart? He doubts it.
As The Wrestler (2008) reveres the male sportsman, Black Swan pays bold homage to the female dance artist. Both Aronofsky films show art consummated at the expense of the individual. In order to achieve wholeness, the Dark must roar alongside pure intention and high ideals without destroying them.
It’s striking how little self worth Nina really has. Brainwashed, she believes that being a perfect dancer is all. As little girl/woman, Nina lives sheltered in her mother’s Upper West Side apartment. Her bedroom is filled with stuffed animals and ballerina music boxes. Portman reveals a determined dance martyr who cracks her joints, hobbles on bloody, split toenails and purges regularly to stay thin.
Life, indeed reality, is what we make of it. Nina careens insanely in waves, relentlessly pushed by her own ego, her mother, the demanding Leroy, and wiley understudy Lily (ravishing Mila Kunis). As if this weren’t enough, she reels with guilt over the “retirement” of former company star Beth Macintyre. Winona Ryder wrings the last drop out of Beth, utterly used and violently crushed.
Audiences will lose track of what is real and unreal in Nina’s paranoid hallucinations. Portman has honed the self-destructiveness of Lauren in Heat (1995), and sustains it throughout. Action never lulls as Aronofsky depicts Nina’s inner and outer demons. The rousing cadences of Tchaikovsky billow like a sea beneath this adult fairy tale.
Kunis melds Lily’s smoky cattiness with just enough sisterly charm. Nina surrenders to her new friend. Knowing Lily is like walking through a dank museum basement filled with the Female’s dark artifacts: competition, raw hunger, erotic satiation.
Nina’s Black Swan emerges at last. She parties all night prior to morning rehearsal. Sex is her birthright, seduction her innate power. It’s a classic theme elevated by Portman, a revelation of both Hindu goddesses Kali and Lakshmi. Destruction becomes liberation as light and beauty shine. Portman performs most of her own dancing.
Cassel advances upon his prima ballerina to push her onto dangerous new ground. He transcends sexual harassment as he is able to control desire. “That was me seducing you. It needs to be the other way around,” he says.
Hershey’s needy innocence gives way to a mother’s overbearing rage, then morphs into teary adulation.
Several masterstrokes ensure the film’s success. Mark Heyman and John McLaughlin rewrote Andres Heinz’s original script to focus on Nina’s psychology. Cinematographer Matthew Libatique follows Nina and the action closely, making subject larger than life. Digital effects complement cinema verite. Blood flows. Feathers sprout.
Benjamin Millepied of the New York City Ballet choreographs. Clint Mansell created Black Swan’s rousing musical score. Much of the film is set in Lincoln Center.
In real life, Portman fell in love with co-star and choreographer Millepied. The two are engaged and expecting their first child, a boy, this year.
Creation. Destruction. Sacrifice. Black Swan’s ending will leave audiences yearning for Nina to embrace herself wholly.
If you like Black Swan, you might enjoy: I Am Love; The Ghost Writer; The Other Woman.
Black Swan 2010 / R / 1 hour, 48 min
Cast Overview: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Genres: Drama, Thriller
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