Film Reviews
By Rama Gaind
BLACK SWAN
The arthouse style is the captivating appeal of Black Swan which is an intense and powerful psychological thriller.
The film will have you glued to the screen as Nina Sayers (played brilliantly by Natalie Portman) is the tightly-strung ballet dancer who is overcome with mental and physical anguish.
While she aspires to be the ‘perfect’ dancer, she is continually sidelined both in her personal life and professional career with the New York City Ballet.
Her mother Erica (Barbara Hershey) treats her as though she’s still a baby and she faces a few issues at work.
When lead dancer Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder) retires Nina is given the lead role of Odette in Swan Lake, despite the company’s director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), expressing doubts about whether she can allow herself the necessary abandon to play the White Swan’s alter ego, the Black Swan, with passion and sensuality.
The technical aspects of this film are excellent with smooth dance scenes and valuable digital effects. The performances are all superb.
However, the film rests on Portman’s slim shoulders. She’s proved how competent she is by winning the Best Actress awards at the Golden Globes and BAFTA – and is frontrunner for the Oscars later this month.
Natalie is in nearly every scene and does well in striking an emotional balance with the physical demands of her character. Nina is at once shy and nervous and easily overwhelmed, but intensely ambitious and consumed by undercurrents of sexual desire.
Director Darren Aronovsky (The Wrestler) has succeeded exceptionally well in delivering a disturbing portrait of a flawed individual. This is what makes for a memorable cinematic experience.
TRUE GRIT
The Coen brothers, Ethan and Joel (Fargo, No Country for Old Men), revamp John Wayne’s wild west with this adaption of a Charles Portis novel.
Fourteen-year-old newcomer Hailee Steinfeld is the spirited, pig-tailed angel Mattie Ross who is seeking vengeance on the man who robbed and killed her father.
She hires whiskey-soaked, one-eyed, trigger-happy federal marshall Rooster Cockburn (Jeff Bridges) to find the killer.
This True Grit, while funnier than Wayne’s 1969 classic, is also darker, gentler and more violent.
It also stars Matt Damon and Josh Brolin with strong performances from them all.
The Golden Globe award won for Best Cinematography by Roger Deakins is well-deserved.
NO STRINGS ATTACHED
Starring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher, this casual sex comedy is disappointing.
THE NEXT THREE DAYS
Russell Crowe is a mild-mannered family man who masterminds his wife’s escape from jail.
Director of the Oscar-winning film Crash, Paul Haggis provides some sturdy, but unexceptional entertainment.
