The beautiful baby made of the drunken one night stand between Requiem for a Dream and Swan Lake - a review of Black Swan

A quick sum up before I possibly venture into spoilers: Great movie, one of the best of the year, but it isn't without its flaws.


spoilers
Spoilers
spoilers


This is a noir mixed with a drug trip mixed with ballet. It is the kind of movie that Bends genres while still being it's own thing. What do I mean? Well at its heart its the story of a girl who wants to be the best. Her life spirals out of control because of choices she has made that result in her doing some bad things. By the way, thats also the same vague plot as Psycho. It is, without a doubt, a noir by that sense. But for more specific plot condescension it is this:
Natalie Portman wants to be the lead in Swan Lake, but to do so she needs to be both her Dark half the Black Swan and the light half, the Swan Queen(The Queen portion being the easy part with her being this almost pure character). I say almost because she does allude to having had a life. The movie uses a bare bones version of swan Lake as its structure for her to act and as a template for the movie. Woman is turned intoa swan, in order to change back she needs to find true love. But once she does that her evil twin sweeps in a sleeps with her prince and the swan kills her self. This is the metaphorical plot of the movie. but where, what how, and who are the variables here. And in general the plot functions on two levels, it works as a cautionary tale of a girl who works too hard and pushes her self too much and is pressured to be the best and how that affects her. And as such she also develops an eating disorder which causes her perception of reality(which is our the audiences perception) to be radically affected. It is a great metaphor for how the media projects onto young women and projects what they want you to believe is the ideal and how trying to reach that ideal can harm you irreversibly. The other level it works on, and this is the part I really am displeased with is that it displays Homosexuality as being the dark part of the self and heterosexuality as the light part of the self. And defining either as either applies a value to these concepts that they shouldn't have nor need.
The directing and acting are both strong here andthe writing services both.
This movie is half noir half psychological thriller half horror movie(it does has some creepy turn your stomach moments) and half ballet. The beauty is that the director and the cast all manage to make this work and by the time you are done, you are left with a really great piece about what it is like to be a woman raised in American media perception of women. This movie is an A-. Many of you may give it an A but that part of it where it makes a judgment on sexuality sub consciously cost it some points.