Movie review: Black Swan

I took myself to see this and it wasn't easy, not just because of the difficult subject matter but because it's only playing in San Francisco. There was a big lunchtime crowd in the theatre; Mick LaSalle reviewed it in the Chronicle this AM. He gave it a little man sitting up and laughing -- almost his best. He did say that Natalie's performance was Oscar worthy.

My take: It wasn't the movie I expected or wanted but I enjoyed it. No, enjoy isn't the right word. It worked me; my stomach was in knots. I've taken enough ballet to have flashbacks throughout. Ballet is truly a strange and pathetic world that hasn't changed much. Is it because the dancers look like 12-year-old girls--no curves or breasts and big, hollow, hungry eyes like those paintings from the 70s--that they are treated like little girls pitted against each other, lied to, bribed and manipulated? As much as I hated reliving that, I would have liked more of it and less of the gore, some of it is real and some of it is, apparently, in our deranged heroine's head. I felt the entire audience look away in horror when she picks at her hang nail, pukes or has to pull her deformed toes apart. What bothered me is that her psychotic break has nothing to do with ballet. (We're led to believe that her crazy mother--played y Barbara Hershey--and the stress of ballet exacerbates her fragile mental state, along with, I'm imagining, her severe hunger.) She sees things that aren't there and she'd be seeing these same things if she was an iron worker, I think. I believe the movie would have been stronger if there was less crazy and more ballet. The ballet world is crazy enough. Believe me.

The costumes were designed by those famous, once-local designer sisters, the Mulleavy's of Rodarte. (You know them; they did a line for Target--nearly the apex of success.) The sets were fine--loved Natalie/Nina's apartment. I really like the actress who plays Lily, Mila somebody. She was in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which I also recommend. She's the dancer I wanted to be; she understands and accepts the insanity and doesn't take it all that seriously. She can be happy for the other dancers and seems to be able to revel in the joy of moving. (In all my years of dancing, I NEVER met a dancer like her, BTW.) She is the ideal.

Go see. Take your man. The gore makes it a movie a dude's dude will sit through.