"Black Swan" Throwback Review
Black Swan is audience-friendly arthouse.
Similar to Mother!, Darren Aronofsky tells a fairly straightforward story filled here and there will allegories and metaphorical visuals. While David Lynch hates you for trying to figure things out, Aronofsky pretty much spells it all out for you. He knows that there is a great deal of fun in piecing things together.
People say that his movies are too on-the-nose and don't allow for interpretation. That argument is valid, especially for Mother!. But does a metaphor have to be subtle for it to be good? Of course not! Aronofsky isn't here to trick you, he's here to give you something that blends the familiar and unfamiliar.
Black Swan is passionate and ambitious and works as the perfect late-night screening. True to Aronofsky's style, multiple genres come mixed in here, and enough of the story is spelled out for us to figure out the backstory. Do we need to know the specifics of Nina's relationship with her mom or Beth's falling out with the company? No, we have enough information to figure it out for ourselves.
The whole movie can be described as a tour de force, especially Natalie Portman as the titular character. As her character does, Portman lets go of her inhibitions and delivers a performance that runs the physical and emotional gamut.
