Black Swan

Being an artist can be a lonely and at times self-destructive experience. Genius overlaps into insanity and vice versa. Insecure and full of self-sabotage yet driven to go forward for fear of failure. In the end the fear of both success and failure can be the driving force to success. It can be a psychologically frightening place. “Black Swan” captures all of that perfectly. Dying and suffering for your art is not new but I loved wacthing Darren Aronofsky’s take on it. If you have ever been passionately, obsessively, compulsively focused on your creative dreams and goals this film will make you cringe, cry and love it. Natalie Portman is brilliant to watch. The imagery and characters are so full of raw emotion and the use of sound in the film is harrowing and beautiful to listen to. So much of it is cringe worthy in the best way possible. Vincent Cassel and Mila Kunis star alongside Ms. Portman and are both perfect in this as well. And it’s time Winona Ryder made her comeback in a much larger role. She is such a great actress and sorely missed on the screen. She used to be someone whose films I would see regardless of the story or content or director, just her name was enough to draw me in and guarantee it was worth seeing. Rodarte did the gorgeous costumes for this film as well so lots of stuff to obsess over. The film opens in select theaters December 1st.