Black Swan (2010)

(SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO TO SUCCEED IN THE BALLET?)

[Now for a bust of a movie widely tipped for Oscar success.]

Black Swan (2010) is an American psychological thriller/horror film directed by Darren Aronofsky, starring Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, and Mila Kunis.

In the end Natalie Portman discovers that the only way she can achieve the perfect performance in the lead role of Swan Lake is to go mad and kill herself.


When New York City Ballet director, Vincent Cassel, decides to re-invigorate the classic Swan Lake for his latest production by ditching his aging former protege and established principle dancer (Winona Ryder) in order to obtain a more visceral and real staging, dedicated company member Portman sees it as an opportunity to step into the limelight.

However, she is bitterly disappointed to discover that in Cassel's opinion, despite her brilliantly obsessive perfectionism as a dancer, Portman lacks the dark passion required to portray the black swan portion of the role. He believes that she must abandon reason in order to experience the schizophrenia required to properly play the part. It is especially disappointing for Portman, when the newest member to join the company, wild child and rule breaker Mila Kunis, seems a natural choice for the black swan role.

Desperate for the part, Portman approaches Cassel, only to discover that he has already decided to give it to yet another dancer. In an effort to prove to Portman just how unsuitable she is, Cassel tries to take sexual advantage of her in his office, only for Portman to bite him on the lip in order to free herself. A move which forces Cassel to reverse his decision and offer the role to Portman, much to the displeasure of the other dancers who assume she only obtained the part by offering herself to Cassel.

Having won the role, Portman's troubles are not over, however, as she seemingly has to cope, not only with the stress of rehearsals on her body, but also the increasing competition she feels she has with Kunis for the part, as well as the ever present and suffocating attention of her over protective and doting mother (played by Hollywood maniac stalwart, Barbara Hershey), a former dancer who considers she gave up the possibility of success to raise her daughter.

Neither does misogynist Cassel ease up on his new choice of protege, insisting that Portman constantly push herself to the limit and suggesting that she should indulge in pleasuring herself for homework in an effort to free herself of her inhibitions and frigidity, a task she finds impossible to do at first.

Throughout the whole period leading up to the opening night, Portman suffers an increasing number of ever more bizarre and frightening experiences, from strange lesions appearing on her shoulder-blades, to a leering middle-aged man on the subway, to encounters with Cassel's former leading lady, Ryder, who is supposedly in hospital having sustained terrible injuries after walking out into traffic following her fall from grace, as well as a wild night on the town with Kunis which eventually leads back to Portman's bed where Kunis performs oral sex on her before transforming into a vision of Portman herself.

Not surprisingly these frightening and confused visions involving herself, Cassel, Kunis, Ryder and her mother, culminating in Portman apparently plucking out proto-feathers emerging from the flesh of her back, while both her legs spontaneously break, leave Portman unhinged.

However, when she wakes on the eve of opening night to find that her mother has reported her sick, Portman fights with her, rather than miss her opportunity to dance.

So her unexpected arrival at the theatre confuses everyone. Not least Kunis who by now thinks she will be performing in Portman's place. However, Portman is adamant that she will be dancing and bullies Cassel into agreeing to reverse his decision to replace her.

Clearly still suffering from hallucinations, Portman manages to get on stage, although she injures herself in a fall, breaking down in tears.

Retreating to her dressing room she discovers Kunis preparing to take over from her in the role of the black swan, but will have nothing of it. Tragically, during the ensuing argument Portman apparently mortally wounds Kunis with a shard of broken mirror. Though, she still somehow manages to make it on stage and performs the black swan role like never before, her arms apparently transforming into black wings as she dances.

Between bows, as she receives the adulation of the audience, Portman dashes into the wings to kiss Cassel passionately, much to his tearful delight.

Returning to her dressing-room in order to change for the final act, Portman first tries to soak up the blood emerging from the hiding place of Kunis's dead body, only to be shocked when Kunis herself appears at her dressing-room door to congratulate Portman on her performance, at which point Portman tearfully realises that it was not Kunis who she had stabbed earlier but herself.

Wiping away her tears she rejoins the stage as the white swan for her fatal finale, leaping to a blissful end in front of her sobbing mother who is in the audience, as the blood from her wound consumes her white costume.


Whether or not you enjoy the movie depends largely on whether or not you mind that much of the spectacle occurs in Portman's head. She and director Aronofsky do an excellent job of scaring her out of her wits. And the supporting performances are all great. But there will, no doubt, be audience members who baulk at the use of madness as experienced from the viewpoint of the victim device, as well as those from the ballet community who will take issue with the necessity for a dancer to go mad and kill themself in order to put in the perfect performance. Even so, it's a white-knuckle ride of the highest order, more pop-corn, though, than high art.

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Swan_(film)

The Number 23 (2007)

(SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW EITHER WHO WROTE THE BOOK OR WHO THE KILLER IS?)

[Now for another bust of a woefully underrated-by-critics movie that, like many a cult masterpiece, did scant business in theatres as a result. One can only hope that, like so many other initially poorly received classics, its reputation improves with time.]

The Number 23 (2007) is an American psychological thriller directed by Joel Schumacher, starring Jim Carrey and Virginia Madsen.

In the end Jim Carrey discovers that he is not only a murderer but the author of a manuscript documenting his bizarre obsession with the number 23.


Mild-mannered and devoted father of one, fiercely loyal husband, and animal control officer, Carrey, is one day bitten at work by a stray dog. The incident results in his arriving late for his birthday date with wife, Virginia Madsen. During the time she is waiting, Madsen is drawn into a second-hand book-store where she discovers an intriguing manuscript that shares the name of the movie and which she decides to buy as a present for Carrey.

Carrey discovers that the manuscript is a mind warping odyssey into paranoia which begins by stating that the characters contained within it are fictitious and including a warning, later ignored by Carrey, that any reader who finds any resemblance to persons living or dead should proceed no further.

It recounts the experiences of a policeman who, from an early age, is fascinated by crime fiction and who is inspired to become a detective after becoming the first person to discover the suicide of his childhood widow neighbour.

Although his wife finds the manuscript merely interesting, Carrey becomes convinced that the early detective's life reminds him of his own youth, even though, later chapters recount the ultimately doomed passionate affair that the detective has with a mysteriously dark, sex and violence obsessed woman with possible suicidal tendencies.

Carrey's grip on reality loosens further when he reads of the detective's encounter with a beautiful blond, driven to murder and suicide by an obsession with the number 23.

Indeed, despite his wife's scepticism, not only does Carrey believe that the detective's life mirrors his own, he also becomes convinced that his life is similarly dominated by the same number.

However, Carrey is disturbed by the increasingly violent descriptions of the detective and his lover's affair, especially when they inspire murderous nightmares in him against his own wife.

Now concerned about the state of her husband's mind, Madsen arranges for Carrey to talk to one of her friends, a university lecturer who dismisses the manuscript as typical non-scientific magical thinking. Madsen's friend does, however, offer Carrey one insight, which is that if after finishing the story Carrey still believes that it is about him, then the author of the story must know Carrey very well.

Betrayal and the breakdown of the fictional detective's relationship inspires further paranoid thoughts in Carrey's mind about the faithfulness of his own wife. So much so, that when the detective is driven to jealous murder, Carrey decides to move out of the family home lest he do similar harm to Madsen.

Despite the story's obvious parallels to a real world murder case involving a victim whose grave the stray dog that initially bit Carrey guards, Carrey is eventually convinced that the person convicted of the murder is not only innocent of the crime, but also not the author of the manuscript.

When Carrey and Madsen's son discover a post office box address hidden within the manuscript's pages, the trio hatch a scheme that they hope will flush out the real author. But when they confront the old man who eventually shows up to collect their shipment of 23 large foam-filled boxes, they are appalled when he uses a box opener to cut his own throat, rather than reveal the truth.

Madsen immediately swings into action ordering Carrey and their son home while she takes care of the situation. While there Carrey is assured by Madsen over the phone that she got no information from the old man before he died, despite the old man managing to give her some kind of warning and her recovering an identification badge that relates to a long abandoned and decaying psychiatric institute where the old man once worked.

That night, unknown to Carrey, Madsen investigates the old man's office where she discovers he had a similar obsession with the number 23, while, simultaneously, Carrey's word counting analysis of the manuscript reveals a hidden message that leads him and his son to dig beneath steps in a nearby public park, where they find human remains.

Leaving the scene in order to alert the authorities, Carrey and his son are dumbfounded when they eventually return to the park with the police, only to find no sign of the remains they uncovered earlier.

Carrey's paranoia and his doubts over the fidelity of Madsen are further heightened when she turns up driven in the car of her university lecturer friend.

However, when Carrey notices Madsen's dirt encrusted fingernails, he realises that she moved the remains and jumps to the conclusion that she is the unknown author and he is therefore married to the real murderer. At which point Madsen reveals the truth she discovered from the old man which is that Carrey wrote the manuscript and it is she who is, in fact, married to a murderer.

Returning to the derelict institute in daylight despite the overwhelming evidence Carrey does not initially realise the full horror of the situation, which is that it was he who fell in love with a beautiful but twisted, sexual violence obsessed, college student who, on discovering Carrey's obsession with the number 23, abandons him for the arms of her college lecturer lover, and that it was Carry who, driven insane with jealous rage and her goading, both murdered her and framed her lover.

Only when he returns to the hotel room that he was strangely drawn to after moving out of the family home for Madsen's safety, is the whole truth revealed, as Carrey discovers the missing 23rd and final chapter of the manuscript hidden under the room's peeling wallpaper, thus finally dispelling any doubts about his past.

The explanation of the manuscript is that it was supposed to be an elaborate suicide note that Carrey drafted while staying in the hotel room, the walls of which, as well as himself, he covered with his confession and ravings on the number 23, before throwing himself out of the room's window. The fall however was not enough to kill him, although it did cause him to lose all memory of his murderous loss of control. Unexpectedly, the deranged ramblings of his manuscript fail to raise suspicions that he had anything to do with the recent murder in the minds of those in the psychiatric institute charged with looking after him.

Eventually, sufficiently recovered from his injuries and with no memory of the terrible crime he committed, Carrey is released from care only to literally bump into Madsen as he leaves the institute. Nevertheless one of his carers, who turns out to be the old man, himself becomes obsessed with the number 23 and decides to publish the manuscript under a false name.

Despite the new life he has built and the protestations of a distraught Madsen, Carrey decides he must atone for his sins and hand himself over to the authorities so that the wrongly convicted innocent man can be freed.


Despite the considerable damage Joel Schumacher did to his film making reputation by very nearly single-handedly managing to kill off the Batman franchise (so successfully begun by Tim Burton) with this second collaboration with Carrey, Schumacher did manage to produce a very taught and exciting movie, despite overwhelming negative reviews.

The acting throughout is without exception superb especially from the two principles. Carrey is particularly impressive in his first suspense thriller role. The only criticism that can be fairly levelled at the production is that the script does rely rather heavily on a great many coincidences, and crucially on the authorities willingness to convict an innocent man for a murder while ignoring a raving lunatic in their midst, who should surely have raised more suspicions than he did. And perhaps the Carrey character's willingness to atone for his past sins means that the closing scenes of the movie are a bit soft.

However, that aside the plot contains enough twists and misdirection to keep the cleverest plot buster guessing right up to the ultimate reveal.

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Number_23

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_Forever