Tom's Life Bits

'Black Swan“ is a movie that's basically about how pencil-thin dancers drive themselves batty to be A-list ballerinas, to the point where they act out in the most un-ladylike of ways. That's the more serious way to look at it. Yet, this movie is often so over-the-top bonkers that not taking it seriously becomes a wise option.

“Swan” has Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers, a veteran dancer at a fledgling New York dance company. She's a tiny, fragile, young thing, still living at home with her overprotective, former ballet-dancer mom (Barbara Hershey), sleeping in a bedroom full of plush animals. Nina hopes all her hard work will lead to her Big Moment, which may come when the company's artistic director (Vincent Cassel, oozing with manipulative menace) stages a stripped-down version of “Swan Lake” and is looking for someone to play the angelic Swan Queen, since the company's aging star dancer (Winona Ryder) has been forced to retire.

Sure enough, Nina gets the role. But she must also assume the role of the dark, uninhibited Black Swan, a role that requires her to dance with a passionate, seductive abandon she can't get herself to exhibit. That's something that comes easily to Lily (Mila Kunis), a new member of the company of whom Nina grows instantly suspicious. A tattooed, chain-smoking, meat-eating, sexually liberated wild child, Lily is everything Nina is not. And considering the way Nina begins to become unhinged as the pressure gets to her, it makes you wonder whether Lily is a figment of Nina's imagination, her dark side trying/dying to get out.

If it wasn't for “The Fighter,” which is also dropping today, I'd say “Swan” is the most aesthetically insane film to come out, looking for awards and 10-best list consideration. Oddly enough, it's also a movie that's given me the most to think about. I mean, is this the most daring examination of women torturing themselves to be flawless in our perfection-dominated society, or just the nuttiest? Or even the freakiest? Either way, it's thought-provoking - so, I guess that deserves a plus.

Director Darren Aronofsky is getting his Brian De Palma on with this film, since it's the kind of teasingly erotic, self-referential, psychological thriller the “Dressed to Kill” director has made a career churning out. Aronofsky seems to be enjoying not only making a movie that's deliriously wink-wink, from its constant movie hat-tipping to its bombastic music cues, but a film that can also be seen as an estrogen-fueled companion piece to his last acclaimed hit “The Wrestler.” (Both films are about performers crippling themselves, mentally and/or physically, to achieve that one last shot at greatness.)

It can also be considered one wild, Hollywood in-joke of a movie, with Portman as the waifish It Girl-of-the-Moment, Ryder as the washed-up It Girl Portman has replaced, and Kunis as the future, fearless It Girl Portman has to fend off. Portman gives a fascinating performance that makes you think, just like with her desperate-for-accolades-and-adoration character, that her career depends on it.

There are so many ways to interpret “Black Swan,” a film I ultimately admired more than I desired. But I always come back to my initial reaction: that it's simply one whacked-out movie - and the closest many of us will come to attending a night at the ballet.