"Black Swan"

I have to say that I think this review is pretty spot on, with a few exceptions. I was fortunate enough to see an advanced screening of Black Swan about a month ago, with a Q&A session afterward with Aronofsky, Portman, Cassel and Kunis. Hearing what the cast and director had to say about the film did actually enrich my viewing (Aronofsky stressed that he wanted to make a “Fairy Tale” with characters drawn from Swan Lake, and his cliched fairy-tale characters were intentional.) I still left the theater feeling like the film hadn’t gotten into the depth and the detail of the ballet world that I would have liked. I wanted there to be more of an introspective look into the ballet world, but it never quite got there. And really, it is unfortunate that it relies so heavily on old archetypes of characters in the ballet world: overbearing stage mom, fragile flighty ballerina, lecherous artistic director and nutty over-the-hill prima. I mean, we’ve all seen that enough, we get it. But ultimately, it’s not really a ballet movie, it’s a psychological thriller and the setting happens to be in a cookie cutter interpretation of a ballet company. Still, like all Aronofsky films, I found myself thinking about the film a lot weeks after seeing it. He makes movies that stick with you, and I think that’s got to count for something, right?