We Need to Talk About Kevin

All Talk
Lynne Ramsay Can’t Commit to Horror
By Cole Smithey

Forced, stultifying, and artificial beyond belief, "We Need to Talk About Kevin" is Scottish director Lynne Ramsay's off-key treatment of Lionel Shriver's novel. Ramsay co-wrote the screenplay with brother-in-law Rory Kinnear. The story is about a bad-seed son who terrorizes his mother Eva (Tilda Swinton) from the minute he's born.

Unsure of whether it wants to be a cynical drama or a horror thriller, the poorly paced film inches through Kevin's bad behavior from infant to teenager. The only thing more reprehensible than Kevin’s unwarranted hatred of his mother is his parents’ unwillingness to straighten the kid out even as his behavior spirals out of control.

Kevin plays nice when daddy Franklin (played by a miscast John C. Reilly) is around but he has a knack for methodically pushing his mom's buttons the rest of the time. As an infant, Kevin never stops screaming, except when dad’s around. At six-years-old, Kevin trashes his mom's newly designed home office with a squirt gun filled with paint. Discipline is off the table. Instead, daddy gives Kevin a toy bow-and-arrow set reinforced by readings from Robin Hood--the only book Kevin owns. Later, Kevin will graduate to a high-powered bow, also given as a gift from pops. The teenaged Kevin is bound for disaster. However, when the much foreshadowed crisis moment finally comes, it arrives with all the force of an overflowing bathtub—not the least because it occurs off-screen.

Production designer Judy Becker’s lazy approach relegates the film’s mise en scène to an afterthought. “We Need to Talk About Kevin” is a text book example of how not to design a film. Everything is bright shiny surfaces without texture or depth. Context is nowhere in sight.

“We Need to Talk About Kevin” plays like a narrative negative. What the viewer sees are all the extraneous scenes between what should be shown. It’s as if the editor confused what was on the editing room floor with what should have gone into the projector.

Filmed in stagnate fly-on-the-wall compositions, the film emphasizes Tilda Swinton's inscrutable performance as a woman unable or unwilling to come to grips with her nightmare spawn. In short, Eva is the same brand of idiot as her husband and her diabolical son. There’s no one to empathize with in the story-not even Kevin’s abused younger sister who barely shows up except to be inexplicably blinded in one eye by her hateful sibling.

Some people should never be parents; some children should never be born; some novels don't deserve to be made into films. "We Need to Talk About Kevin" is a minimalist mystery with no hook. Whether there’s more to Shiver’s novel of “maternal ambivalence” is immaterial. The movie sits at the opposite end of the spectrum from a well executed art film like "Melancholia," whose characters take action in a framework of fertile social commentary. Rather, “Kevin” falls into a pejorative category with half-films such as “Martha Marcy May Marlene” or “Shame” where the abstract narrative and underdeveloped themes never connect. It’s not enough to instigate suspense. There has to be a story. Moreover there has to be character development. You won’t find any such luxuries here.

The parents of a psychopathic child don’t even bother to have the conversation the film's title suggests. Perhaps the filmmakers hope their audience will do their verbal articulation for them in circular what-if conversations. Sadly, there isn't much to say about Kevin except that he wasn't properly disciplined as a child and so he went all Columbine without going so far as to take his own life. A year ago Mumblecore was the dumbest film movement around. Now dumb is the province of a minimalist subgenre that has yet to be named. Perhaps we should call it the “Shame on Martha and Kevin” movement. Let’s just hope it stops here. Film audiences should be so lucky.

Rated R. 112 mins. (D) (One Star - out of five/no halves)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Cold War Spies
John le Carré's Novel Goes Full Tilt
By Cole Smithey

International espionage during the Cold War period of the early ‘70s, as practiced by British MI6 double agents, is one very icy dish. Director Tomas Alfredson ("Let ther Right One In") peels back myriad shades of atmospheric gray that contribute thoroughly to his spook characters' consciously modulated mannerisms. The result is a spot-on adaptation of John le Carré's famous 1974 novel. Husband-and-wife screenwriters Peter Straughan and the late Bridget O'Connor execute the finest novel-to-film adaptation you could imagine. Crisscross strains of Bertolucci's "The Conformist" flow through cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema’s stark compositional choices. Composer Alberto Iglesias contributes to the film’s tense mood with musical motifs that push and pull at the seething drama onscreen.

John Hurt delivers a prehensile performance as Control, the head of Britain’s CIA equivalent, before a failed mission costs him his job. Control orders MI6 field spy Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) on a Black Ops mission to Budapest to arrange for the defection of a Hungarian general with knowledge about the identity of an MI6 mole who has been passing off secrets to the Russians. Skullduggery hangs thick in the Eastern European air. Their quiet meeting at an outdoor café is interrupted by a sickening bit of suspenseful violence that occurs with sloppy fury. Far removed from the glossy action of a James Bond movie, cold blooded death comes as an occupational hazard. No agent is immune regardless of his depth of experience. A mole in the upper echelon of MI6 is surely to blame. Uncovering his identity makes up the narrative meat of the film.

As the mystery unfolds, sharply constructed flashback sequences bring the secret inner lives of each involved spy into focus.

The film’s nursery rhyme-informed title refers to the codenames of the suspected British spies who call their London headquarters by its alternate title, the Circus. Irony drips from the word since nothing about the industrial building with its harsh florescent lights or soundproof conference room displays any sense of humor.

Gary Oldman’s implacable “Beggarman” George Smiley is Control’s former right-hand man called out of retirement to uncover the traitor among the group. The mole has been giving away carefully-guarded secrets for so long that it calls into question the value the entire MI6 agency. Toby Jones plays the “Tinker” Percy Alleline to Colin Firth’s well spoken “Tailor” Bill Haydon. Ciarán Hinds brings his stoic nature to bear as Roy Bland, the “Soldier” of the group. Tom Hardy turns in an emotionally moving portrayal as Ricki Tarr, a love-blinded spy gone rogue. You couldn’t hope for a better ensemble of actors. There’s no such thing as a throwaway scene in the entire film. Here’s a film to sit back and savor every moment.

“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” is more than a character study. It is an examination of a highly skilled occupation that demands such complete and utter commitment that all emotional response must be submerged to a point of permanent poker-faced resolve. No one can be trusted and yet loyalty to the group is mandatory. A company Christmas party where the agents pretend to let their hair down momentarily arrives as a key repeated sequence for what it says about the way British spies of the period interacted. Every jovial smile conceals suspicion and secrets. Tomas Alfredson’s flawless staging provides a fly-on-the-wall view that allows the audience to peek behind the characters’ well-defended shroud of secrecy to discover yet another one that hides beneath. The story is about how loyalty and integrity are enforced in a spy agency where such values add up to much more than a simple matter of life and death. They represent the safety and viability of an entire system of government.

Rated R. 128 mins. (A) (Five Stars - out of five/no halves)

La Femme Nikita

Before it spawned a cornucopia of television series knock-offs, writer/director Luc Besson's stylized 1990 French crime thriller set a new standard for the girl-with-a-gun movie trope. We meet Anne Parillaud's junkie character Nikita walking with three thugs on their way to rob a pharmacy owned by the father of one of the group. One of the thugs carries a red axe. Dressed butch, Nikita is far from glamorous. The robbery escalates epically out of control when police arrive. Nikita comes away from the bloodbath as the sole survivor (after killing a cop point blank). In court she gets a life sentence without parole for 30 years. In guttural tones wild child Nikita promises to kill everyone in the courtroom. Still, Nikita's wanton disregard for authority and devastating ability to dole out and endure physical punishment earns her a top-secret place in an elite squad of government assassins. Officially, she is registered as deceased subsequent to suicide. Under the tutelage of her personal keeper Bob (Tchéky Karyo) and etiquette maven Amande (Jeanne Moreau), Nikita transforms from a primal punk monster into an elegant femme fatal.

The film scores heavily by sidestepping clichés in favor of ever-refreshing shifts in tone and atmosphere. Cinematographer Thierry Arbogast has a field day with Dutch angles and reflective surfaces. Television and computer monitors play a part. Posh hotel rooms segue into florescent-lit industrial kitchens. Eric Serra's infectious techno musical score adds an undercurrent of propulsion to the story. There's a fetishistic look to the film supported by Anne Parillaud's sinewy frame, sexy attitude, and pixie hairdo. The film takes on a pro-working class tenor when Nikita enters into a romantic relationship with a grocery store clerk who dreams of building boats. Naturally, Nikita is called upon to perform her grisly duties during expensive dinners or when she's away on holiday with her boyfriend in Vienna—a gift from “uncle” Bob. The dichotomy between Nikita’s personal life and her covert killing assignments give rise to the film's primary source of dramatic tension.

"La Femme Nikita" paved the way for Besson's 1994 equally groundbreaking crime thriller "Leon: The Professional," which introduced audiences to the young but talented Natalie Portman. “Nikita” also shined a light for a burgeoning brand of hyper-stylized crime thrillers that included Reservoir Dogs (1992), Romeo Is Bleeding (1993), and The Last Seduction (1994). Jean-Luc Godard’s famous quote that, “all you need for a movie is a gun and a girl” may be an oversimplification, but Luc Besson proved the theorem very nicely with “La Femme Nikita.”

Trespass

Robbing the Elite
Joel Schumacher Presses the Wrong Buttons
By Cole Smithey

Joel Schumacher continues on his career-long habit of hits and misses with a home invasion suspense thriller that signifies yet another dip. Knowing that the filmmaker responsible for such cinematic achievements as "Falling Down" and "Tigerland" also spat out the ill-conceived "8MM," and the truly awful "The Number 23," allows you to set your expectations appropriately. Kyle Miller (Nicolas Cage) is a diamond seller living with his trophy wife Sarah (Nicole Kidman) and their socially active teenage daughter Avery (played by the ever-captivating Liana Liberato) in their gated mansion. This family isn’t just wealthy; they’re filthy rich. Given America's ongoing economic depression, the outrageous affluence on display seems to point toward some degree of social satire. Sadly, no such commentary is available. If anything, the film tips toward a vague ideology of radical right-wing survivalist mentality.

Screenwriter Karl Gajdusek goes so far with his kitchen-sink approach to leveraging suspense with laughable plot devices, fake-outs, and goofy dialogue that the film starts to sag long before its third-act escalation toward a climax that nevertheless holds at least one mild surprise.

Kyle wheels-and-deals on the phone while steering his Porsche into the gate of his remote suburban family home. Cage plays his unattractive character with all the sliminess he can muster. Designed by Sarah, the house is a study in outsized modernist minimalism. It comes equipped with a complex security system manned by a 24-hour company. There’s marital tension between the spouses. Kyle is a secretive guy. Avery is in a rebellious snit about not being allowed to go to a party with her ostensibly slutty best friend. Needless to say, our elitist family doesn’t win much audience empathy sequestered in their mansion bunker.

Avery exerts her right to freedom by sneaking out of her domestic prison and climbing the home’s high surrounding fence. Her friend-of-ill-repute picks Avery up beside the road and promptly nearly kills them on a dangerous curve planted by the screenwriter as a piece of underwhelming foreshadowing. The party proves to be a staging area for its teen-boy host to seduce Avery with copious amounts of cocaine in a walk-in closet packed with ostentatious amounts of cash. Avery is unimpressed. She at least represents the film’s singularly likable character.

For a man obsessed with security, Kyle falls for the ole cop-impersonation ploy pretty easily. Our pack of cash-hungry masked thugs are laden with enough back-story to fill up their own B-movie. Team-leader Elias (Ben Mendelsohn) knows about Kyle’s wall safe. Much time is spent intimidating Kyle to open a box whose contents aren’t exactly what the thieves expected to find. Kyle sweats profusely but keeps a poker face as he stalls for time in circular negotiations that enable flashbacks about the intruders. There’s a possibility that Sarah not only knows one of the crooks, but she may be carrying on an adulterous affair with him.

Casting the ever-artificial Nicolas Cage and the always glacial Nicole Kidman as its protagonists has a distancing effect. There’s a bland disconnect between the band of dim-witted thugs, that naturally include a drugged-out girl, and a rich family whose lifestyle relies on how well they can buffer themselves from the outside world. As a par-for-the-course suspense thriller “Trespass” is a marginal addition to an often hackneyed genre. As an audience you could do worse, but you could also do much better.

Rated . mins. () ( Stars - out of five/no halves)

Contagion

Soderbergh Gets Sick

Pandemic Isn’t Catching

By Cole Smithey

"Contagion's" PG-13 rating predicts the film's less than horrific nature (following an overpromising opening sequence). Director Steven Soderbergh inflects his beautifully photographed compositions with a slick techno pop score yet can't compensate for a script splintered into too many subplots.

Screenwriter Scott Z. Burns ("The Informant!") ignores fundamental rules about providing the audience with a clear protagonist. Laurence Fishburne, Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, and Kate Winslet each play intriguing characters who could conceivably lead the story; sadly, all get lost in the shuffle. Kate Winslet's Dr. Erin Mears is excellent. However, her part is cut woefully short. Most damning is the film’s refusal to meditate upon the gruesome reality of a widespread global pandemic that leaves millions of rotting corpses in its wake. Hopscotching between the cities of Chicago, San Francisco, and Hong Kong, the fragmented movie follows the outbreak of a virus called MEV-1 like a felon attempting to avoid the scene of a crime. Jude Law's activist blogger Alan Krumwiede posts a homeopathic cure for the quick-spreading disease on his increasingly busy website. Family man Mitch Emhoff finds that he is immune to the virus after losing two family members to its insidious clutches. Damon's character is perhaps the film's most criminally squandered role, next to a blink-and-you'll-miss-it performance from the enormously talented Elliot Gould. Gould graciously fills a minor role as a research scientist whose subplot gets abandoned more so than every other.

“Contagion” does have its moments, however few and far between they are. An especially dramatic death and subsequent scalp-slicing autopsy bring the movie to a proper pitch of cringe-worthy fear. Another episode involving an infected man coughing and touching handrails on a public bus elicits the level of revulsion mass transit riders experience on a daily basis.

If there’s a stand-out moment in the movie it comes during a televised interview with Laurence Fishburne’s head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Ellis Cheever, and Jude Law’s dentally-challenged blogger. Law’s Krumwiede performs the kind of catty public take-down on Dr. Cheever that Bill O’Reilly gets wet dreams about carrying out against his guests. Irony comes later when Krumwiede’s own missteps catch up with him. Still, the screenwriter draws Law’s blogger character with such cartoonish brushstrokes that he borders on the comical. When Elliot Gould describes blogging as “graffiti with punctuation,” you have to chuckle at the screenwriter’s ham-fisted attempt at editorializing. There’s a certain kitchen-sink thing going on. Witness the stupefying miscasting of comedian Demetri Martin in a supporting role as a lab assistant trusted with handling the MEV-1 virus. Talk about sapping credibility from your movie. Soderbergh did a doozey with this one.

“Contagion” is an odd film for its vast supply of untapped potential. It’s surprising that a seasoned filmmaker like Steven Soderbergh would choose to work with such a poorly realized script. The ensemble performances are strong, and the film’s atmosphere is appropriately glum, but there’s nothing here to make you feel like you’ve had a meaningful cinematic experience. What a waste.

Rated PG-13. 105 mins. (C) (Two Stars - out of five/no halves)

Unknown

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Liam Neeson--Action Man
Identity Spy Thriller Stays Afloat
By Cole Smithey

How Liam Neeson went from being that rare thespian animal of a leading-man-character-actor to a full-on action star while still keeping his artistic integrity is a mystery. It's certainly more than Nicolas Cage could do. The phenomenon probably remains a mystery even to Neeson himself. In his indispensable "Biographical Dictionary of Film," David Thomson says of the actor from Northern Ireland, "There's something not quite right about Liam Neeson." The puzzling quality Thomson refers to is the actor's baffling ability to inhabit characters with a burning sense of intelligent urgency shielded behind his pale blue eyes. Just think about Liam Neeson's indelible title roles in films as far ranging as "Schindler's List" and "Kinsey." We watch the timing of his character's thoughts and understand everything about him at once. He's an actor who naturally inspires his audience to believe in his character, regardless of the narrative parameters. Genre is no barrier. Liam Neeson is equally at home in a western (see "Seraphim Falls") or a historic period drama (see "Michael Collins"). That he frequently returns to the theatrical stage, contributes to the thrilling command of his craft.

"Unknown" is a fish-out-of-water mystery thriller. It's not an especially memorable film, which is ironic considering the analogous subject matter of its overleveraged premise. But what makes it entertaining from start to finish is Liam Neeson's performance. He plays Dr. Martin Harris, an American botanist visiting Berlin with his wife Liz (January Jones) for a biotechnology summit. A forgotten briefcase sends the good doctor in a taxi back to the Berlin airport. Snow is on the ground. Fate intervenes when Martin's cab careens off a bridge into the frigid waters below. His driver, a quick-thinking Bosnian immigrant named Gina (Diane Kruger), saves Martin from certain death, but not from a coma. Four days later, Martin awakens with enough memory intact to retrace his steps back to his hotel where the biotech convention is underway. Still, Martin's lost personal identification proves a considerable hurdle to gaining access to his peers, especially one Professor Bressler (played by a squandered Sebastian Koch). When Martin finally convinces a hotel staffer to escort him to his wife, she doesn't recognize him. To make matters worse there's an imposter (played by Aidan Quinn) who claims to be Liz's husband. As evidenced by his nametag, he too is "Martin Harris." No one recognizes our man.

Martin tracks down Gina to help him. In spite of her tenuous illegal status, she agrees. Gina's thick Eastern European accent creates romantic tension that the characters play against rather than falling prey to. Piecing together Martin's actual identity means surviving several zigzagging car chases and deadly attacks by foreign assassins. Director Jaume Collet-Serra ("Orphan") revs up the ferocity of the action set pieces to a fever pitch. Even the hospital where Martin recovered provides no refuge. Berlin is a nightmare trap. We are in the thick of an absurdist spy puzzle. The solution to "Unknown's" mystery is excessively contrived and yet underdeveloped. You can tell where the film's three screenwriters painted themselves in a corner, and needed to create a trap-door-escape. Though the story stalls in its miscalculated third act, Bruno Ganz supplies a chewy supporting turn as former Stasi officer Ernst Jürgen. Ganz gave a tremendous performance as Adolph Hitler in Oliver Hirschbiegel's "Downfall." He does an equally polished turn here as a remorseless former member of East Germany's Secret Police. Although callous, Jürgen is not without compassion, as evidenced by his willingness to help solve Martin's identity problem. In the three or four scenes he has, Ganz injects welcome life into the film with resourceful line readings that brim with evocative color. If his character's gritty sub-plot proves to be a dead-end, at least it's a closure as satisfying as Liam Neeson's sympathetic portrayal of a mysterious man not far removed from a spy like Jason Bourne.

Rated PG-13. 113 mins. (B-) (Three Stars - out of five/no halves)

 

February 17, 2011 in Thiller | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Interpreter (Looking Back)

Gripping Drama - Fuzzy Politics
Kidman And Penn Elevate UN Thriller
By Cole Smithey

Much ballyhooed for its on-location filming in and around the United Nations building in Manhattan "The Interpreter" works better as a captivating drama than it does as an espionage thriller. There are some sticking plot points that prevent the audience from connecting fully with its convoluted story. Nicole Kidman plays Silvia Broom, a South African UN interpreter who overhears a plot to assassinate Dr. Zuwanie (Earl Cameron), the visiting genocidal leader of her native war-pocked country Matobo (a fictional region). Secret Service agent Tobin Keller (Sean Penn) calls Silvia's checkered past in Matobo into question as he investigates her and her allegation. Sidney Pollack directs "The Interpreter" with an austere distance that detracts from the film's intended suspense.  Uunsurpassable performances from Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn energize the film with an unusual chemistry that works for no obvious reason.  

"The Interpreter" opens with a desolate scene that sets the tone for the brutality suffered by the impoverished citizens of Matobo where a disused soccer stadium serves as a hiding place for corpses. A child with a machine gun vehemently exacts revenge on two ostensible reporters with white skin who have come to view the carnage. A waiting photographer friend of the child's victims ducks for cover in the distance and clicks images of an arriving warlord who will soon pose a serious threat to Silvia Broom and those near her.

Translator Broom plays the flute in her spare time and rides around Manhattan on an old yellow Italian scooter. She has a well-defended mind filled with secrets that she desperately wants to keep hidden. We're primarily informed about Silvia through her many one-on-one discussions with agent Keller, who's haunted by his own demons over the recent death of his dancer wife in a car accident. Keller is quick to presume that Silvia is lying about her impartiality towards the revolutionary-cum-dictator whose life she portends will be threatened on the floor of the UN's General Assembly when he arrives to speak.

Silvia speaks Ku, a language invented for the film. Nicole Kidman's precise elocution and streamlined body language make her entirely credible. When questioned by agent Keller about her motives for being a UN translator Silvia says she believes in what the place [the UN] tries to accomplish, to which Keller responds, "You've had a tough year lady." Silvia returns the verbal slight when Keller later asks her in an interrogation room if he can get her anything. Silvia spits out, "How about a hood?" in a sarcastic tone that induces uncomfortable laughter in light of the American atrocities at Abu Ghraib. These kind of verbal darts in the dialogue take short aim at defects in the Bush Administration's "battle against terror" (read as an equivalent battle against humidity), but it's the film's Hitchcock inspired centerpiece of violence (a reference to Hitchcock's "Sabotage" - 1936) that makes the biggest impression. Audiences fortunate enough to have not seen the trailer for the movie will enjoy the full impact of a narrative sucker punch that darkens the tone considerably.

There are surprising plot problems for a story written by two people (Martin Stellman and Brian Ward), and then polished into a screenplay by three others (Charles Randolph, Scott Frank and Steven Zallian). One key figure of character consternation is the contrived Zuwanie security specialist Nils Lud (Jesper Christensen) who seems to have free reign through the corridors of power in spite of his clearly dubious intentions. The character's function is so insufficiently supported for the amount of import he's given in film's rushed climax that you feel cheated.

Much of "The Interpreter" dwells on Silvia's actions under the close surveillance of Keller's Secret Service team that bumble their by-the-book investigation on several occasions. Silvia is visited by a stalker whose weak motivation of merely scaring her is strained for the level of espionage at play. But the sophomoric subplot is further over-leveraged when the stalker is promptly dispatched by his mysterious boss who somehow knows that the Secret Service have located a hair from the man. The illogical sequence derails the movie in the same way that various other plot detours undermine the heart of the story.

Nonetheless, "The Interpreter" has a political inertia, however tentative, that points toward a more aggressive direction for Hollywood films to comment on the nature of corruption dominating our globe. No one falls in love in "The Interpreter," and we understand why; we all have far too much to be suspicious about these days, even people who we're attracted to.

 Rated PG-13. 128 mins. (B) (Three Stars - out of five/no halves)

 

January 10, 2011 in Thiller | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Black Swan

Back in Black
Natalie Portman Soars and Swoons En Pointe
By Cole Smithey

Darren Aronofsky's voyeuristic psychological thriller about an upstart prima ballerina's descent into madness employs the same subjective dancer's-point-of-view that gave "The Red Shoes" its sense of frenetic authenticity. Dario Argento's "Suspiria" (1977) is another obvious influence. Natalie Portman gives the most dazzling performance of her career as Nina, an entirely believable ballet dancer consumed with proving to her manipulative choreographer that she is capable of possessing the duality of the Swan Queen role in his version of Swan Lake, as both the innocent "White Swan" and the erotically possessed "Black Swan." The ubiquitous Vincent Cassel dominates in his role as New York City Ballet choreographer Thomas Leroy whose proclivity for sleeping with his lead dancers is widely known. Leroy bullies, neglects, and seduces Nina into expanding mental and physical boundaries set in stone by her neurotic mother Erica (Barbara Hershey). Nina still lives at home with mom in their Manhattan apartment. In this dysfunctional setting, echoes of "Carrie" reverberate along with abstract corporeal elements that tip toward Cronenberg's cinema-of-the-body surrealism. Portman's estimable abilities as a ballet dancer give the film a foundation of disciplined substance that Aronofsky liberally attacks with brushstrokes of subliminal menace.

As is the habit of ballet dancers, Nina is compulsive about her art. At home her mother continually prompts her about her obligations to dance. At her Lincoln Center residence, Nina feels threatened by the other dancers in the corp. Lilly (Mila Kunis) poses the most direct threat to Nina's tenuous grip on the "Black Swan" role that she fights to keep. The lesser trained Lilly is certainly better equipped to play the sexually omnivorous part, but is perhaps too worldly to embody the "White Swan" purity that Nina effortlessly possesses. It comes as a shock when Cassel's Leroy gives Nina a homework assignment to go home and "touch herself" as a backdoor into the mentality of the "Black Swan." Aronofsky takes the opportunity to detonate the film's most shocking revelation as Nina masturbates on her bed in the relative privacy of her room. The filmmaker captures a shocking nightmare moment of performance anxiety crossed with the intrinsic embarrassment of a rehearsal process that inhabits every molecule of Nina's being. It's an unforgettable scene that marks our unreliable protagonist as the victim of a volatile structure from which there is no escape.

Regardless of how much or how hard she rehearses Nina is dislocated from her body and from the latent power of her erotically charged imagination. Perpetual bloody scratches on her shoulder blade signify an inner demon attempting to claim its latest victim. An impulsive decision to go out clubbing with her rival Lilly on the night before the opening performance, puts Nina in a drugged-out state that allows for a reverie of lesbian attraction. Flashes of "Rosemary's Baby" arise when paranoid Nina is challenged over whether the Sapphic event was real or not. Indeed, the sex scene brims with an exotic sense of vertigo that sticks in the viewer's mind like a mirage of palpable narcotic fantasy.

Leroy instructs Nina that "The only person standing in your way is you." The line serves as an inciting challenge that puts Nina in a private ring with the repressed desires she has funneled into dance all her life. In her determination to embody the Black Swan, Nina becomes lost in a maze of her own mysterious design. More than anything, she wants to martyr herself for her art in a way that will obliterate all notion of any dancer who has come before or after her. Nina has seen the unhappy fate of the prima ballerina she replaces--Winona Ryder as Beth Macintyre. No brand of sex or romance can compete with Nina's secretly-held vision of a dancer whose transformation into her character is a Gothic revelation of Christ-like ascension.

"Black Swan" comes at a troubled economic time in America when culture has been relegated to the same dust bins that once held the shredded bits of legislative truth that protected it. Artistic passion has become an unaffordable luxury. Only those willing to throw themselves entirely on its long rusty sword have any business pursuing such commercially bankrupt froth. To dream of art is to dream of death. But you can't help feeling that Portman's mythological Black Swan represents a Phoenix whose rebirth will be nothing short of magnificent.

Rated R. 108 mins. (A-) (Four Stars - out of five/no halves)

November 24, 2010 in Thiller | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

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