Review of Black Swan (2010) by Carldamnit — 18 Dec 2010

Spoilers!!! Not that much of the plot revealed below would be surprising after watching the first 10 minutes of the film. 1. The premise is flawed. Why would they select such a spiritless, vapid, flat emotional wreck to carry Swan Lake.

2. Natalie Portman's performance is spiritless, vapid and flat for 90% of the movie and laughably over the top for the remainder. Though the laugh factor is not entirely her fault, because....

3. The forced combination of surrealism and melodrama provided by the script and Aronofsky's direction would be hilarious if it wasn't so embarrassing.

4. At least Showgirls had nudity and memorable one-liners.

5. I'm sure Aronofsky and whoever wrote this has seen The Piano Teacher and that pisses me off, because both movies include:

A. A sexually and emotionally constricted woman that trains vigorously in a performance art.

B. a disturbingly intimate relationship with a mother who is overbearing.

C. a closing shot of the lead having stabbed themselves at one of their performances.

6. Even the frequent masturbation scenes and casual lesbianism that was included to keep straight guys like my brother interested in the movie was unsuccessful. According to my brother, these ladies are thin and gross.

7. The frequent shifts in what is real and what is a hallucination is tiring and I eventually lost interested in telling the two apart, thus making me indifferent to what was I assume meant to be a tragic ending.

8. Aronofsky put me in the uncomfortable position of feeling bad for laughing when other people might not have realized how stupid this movie is.

9. This movie sucked.

10. My brother may never trust me to choose a movie ever again. Here is my brother's two word review of the movie: **** Swan.

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