Venice Review Round-Up: "Black Swan"

Now that it's festival season again, it's time to bring back the review round-ups, where we take a look at what the critics have to say about the latest anticipated films. The 67th Venice Film Festival kicked off with Darren Aronofsky's highly anticipated ballet thriller Black Swan, and now it's time to see what everyone thought. Check back though, as this post will be updated throughout the day in the event that a flood of reviews pour out that contradict my initial "critics consensus":

The film gets off to a good start from Variety's Peter Debruge, who calls the film, "A wicked, sexy, and ultimately devastating study of a young dancer's all-consuming ambition," and goes on to say that star Natalie Portman gives a "courageous turn [that] lays bare the myriad insecurities genuinely dedicated performers face when testing their limits." He finishes the review by comparing the psychological disintegration elements of the story to Rosemary's Baby and Repulsion, which is pretty high praise. The Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt has a different take. He says that the film is "an instant guilty pleasure, a gorgeously shot, visually complex film whose badness is what's so good about it." He goes on to say that "Aronofsky...never succeeds in wedding genre elements to the world of ballet" and that "the horror-movie nonsense drags everything down the rabbit hole of preposterousness."

Natalie is unhappy with Mr. Honeycutt's review; watch out...

Yet the film receives another rave from Screen Daily's Mike Goodridge, who proclaims "Darren Aronofsky soars to new heights with Black Swan, an enthralling drama set in the competitive world of ballet." On a review of a much smaller scale - a tweet - Incontention's Guy Lodge gives the film an "A-" and manages to say the following in 140 characters: "How to tweet this? Aronofsky extends The Wrestler's fascination with physically broken performers to the phsychological. Results are florid and fine cut; dances thrillingly on the border of trash before a sharp left turn into modern fairy tale. Having said that, I can imagine a lot of people disagreeing." Finally, Chris Henson of The Examiner says that "Natalie Portman is devastating."

Additional Reviews:

The Telegraph: "Powerful, gripping, and always intriguing, it also features a lead performance from Natalie Portman that elevates her from substantial leading actress to major star likely to be lifting awards in the near future." ****/****

Indie Wire: "With Natalie Portman, in the demanding leading role, equaling her director in unquestioned commitment the central issue for the viewer is how far one is willing to follow the film down the road to oblivion for art's sake"/"Particularly grating is Hershey's insufferable mother character."

Venice Verdict: A striking, well-acted, mesmerizing work about dedication and obsession whose madness and genre-elements may be too much for some.