Then again, I am a wuss.

It should have been a sign when I was whimpering with my scarf across half my face during "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" that I was not going to be able to handle "Black Swan." But watched and handled it I did, if barely. All this to say that it was absolutely gripping, beautiful, stunning etc. Long story short? Ballet dancer is cast as lead in "Swan Lake," goes crazy and turns into evil Black Swan. Dun-dun-dun.

Things to love?

1) Natalie Portman.

In the lead role of Nina Sayers, Portman legitly confirms in my mind that she is a stellar actor and atones for the second hand embarrassment she gave from the Star Wars movies. People can give her flak for being a privileged snot with a Harvard degree saying dumb things about the recession and eating bagels blah blah.....who the fuck cares. Girl is amazing in this, not only for pulling off the dancing (trained her ass off for a year...at 28, I don't even want to imagine the pain), but working that face on so many levels of looking shit scared without slipping into monotony or camp. In this case, Aronofsky's close ups actually serve a purpose other than gratuitous voyeuristic gazing (looking at you, Angelina Jolie in "The Tourist"). As a character, Nina Sayers is absolutely fascinating and believable, taking the archetype of Perfectionist Ballerina to a whole new level. This isn't just a typical portrait of backstage cattiness, bathroom purging and sexually charged student-teacher, student-student relationships (quick shout out to hot as fuck Vincent Cassel and Mila Kunis here). This is narcissism, insecurity, paranoia, jealousy, sexual repression and awakening all rolled into one clusterfuck of schizo-neurotic-I-don't-know-what.

Basically, any time Nina is alone and there is a mirror in the room (which is probably every 5 minutes), you know weird shit's about to go down.

Dun-dun-dun.

2) The music.

I would have put "soundtrack," except that erroneously gives too much credit to Clint Mansell's "original score." Tchaikovsky is the master here, come on. Don't tell me after listening to the above that you were't imagining yourself standing on a cliff in an angsty Titanic pose with waves crashing up beneath and fire raining down from above. Because you totally were.

Sometimes I wish classical music was still pop music to us the way it must have been to people of its own time. I'll bet Swan Lake would have been topping the charts and playing in all them classy clubs. And instead of dirty grinding people would be drunkenly and dramatically swooning, twirling and arabesquing into each other's arms. Damn, what I'd give to go to a club like that.

3) The pretty.

Rodarte's costume design

Okay, so the whole Manichean imagery and colour schemes were kind of in your face and literal (white=good! black=evil! pink=childhood!) but between the gorgeous dresses and makeup, ghostly lighting and grainy cinematography, you've got something of an aesthetic feast going on. Which really complicated the viewing experience for a wuss like me trying to strategically orient my scarf.