BLACK SWAN * * * *
Cert 15, 107 mins
Natalie Portman is odds-on favourite to pick up a Bafta for her mesmerising performance as a bonkers ballerina, to add to her Golden Globe and, no doubt, an Oscar.
She deserves it, not least for training in ballet for a year before filming began, losing 20 pounds in weight and dancing with a rib injury.
This psychological thriller comes from the unusual mind of director Darren Aronofsky, who also made Requiem For A Dream and The Wrestler.
He offers us a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes at a New York ballet company, where it’s certainly not all glamour. Not with the pain the dancers put their bodies, and especially their feet, though.
Portman plays dedicated Nina Sayers, who sees her chance to shine when older ballerina Winona Ryder is brusquely retired.
Company manager Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) says he wants to produce a “visceral and real” version of Swan Lake, in which one girl will play both the white and black swan queens.
He thinks of Nina as a frigid goody goody, perfect for the white swan but not her evil, uninhibited nemesis. But then she proves she can be passionate, so he gives her her big break.
Her determination to get in touch with her darker side threatens to overwhelm her, though. Her mental state isn’t helped by her unbalanced, overprotective mother Erica (Barbara Hershey), or by fellow dancer Lily (Mila Kunis) trying to get her to take drugs.
Nina’s body seems to be falling apart under the pressure – or is she imagining it? As she starts to hallucinate, we are drawn into disturbing territory.
You can see that a body double is used on wider shots for more complex ballet moves, but Portman still does a lot of her own pointe work.
Look out too for Benjamin Millepied as one of the leading male dancers – off stage, he’s engaged to Portman and they’re expecting a baby.
The film isn’t perfect by any means. Aronofsky is obsessed with shooting the back of people’s heads – Portman has a very elegant nape of the neck but we see far too much of it.
And there are OTT parts, especially at the end, which are laughably ludicrous.
But Black Swan is still a compelling, intense and intoxicating experience. RL
NEDS * * *
Cert 18, 124 mins
Peter Mullan is such an amazing actor, it’s such a shame we don’t see more him on the big screen.
Ken Loach hired the Scot for Riff-Raff and My Name is Joe in the 1990s, but he could easily have become a classier choice for the likes of Martin Scorsese instead of rent-a-star Ray Winstone. In Neds, Mullan’s fleeting appearances as an alcoholic, abusive dad help to nail the picture as an edge-of-seat ’70s retrospective about ‘‘non-educated delinquents’’.
When rival gangs ruled the streets of Glasgow, when teachers could whack their pupils at the drop of a hat and when teenagers sometimes had to attack others first...
Well, that’s life as painted by Mullan, who is also the writer and director of this bone-chilling retrospective.
Neds doesn’t always make sense even right down to the sudden shift in behaviour of John (Gregg Forrest).
He’s a school achiever despite the fact his elder brother Benny (Joe Szula) has been expelled for excessive violence. But after being surrounded by a gang one day, he takes to violence himself.
Despite such inconsistences and a build-up that leads us towards a bizarre quasi-religious ending, Mullan somehow manages to keep the entire film literally on a knife edge.
In what is his third directorial effort after Orphans and The Magdalene Sisters, it’s as if he has crossed a Mike Leigh family drama with the visceral qualities of Shane Meadows’ This Is England.
Purely on performances and atmosphere alone this is well worth a look. But be warned. Sometimes it will be through fingers over eyes. GY
MORNING GLORY * * *
Cert 12A, 107 mins
Since very few television programmes are ever as interesting as they might appear to be behind the scenes, breakfast news programmes scarcely needed the all-star Hollywood treatment.
ITV1’s revamped Daybreak is so bad on the screen it has had viewers switching off in droves.
And with good reason. Adrian Chiles is less suited to breakfast TV than domestic cats were built for swimming.
Into this strangely unreal arena comes Indiana Jones star Harrison Ford.
An award-winning, but ageing, reporter he thinks it’s beneath himself to enter the world of soft stories.
Desperate to make her name, though, is Rachel McAdams’ Becky Fuller, a cheerfully-bright producer aiming to create a career for herself at Good Morning New Jersey. Made redundant, she has to find a new employer and start from scratch.
Can she make Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mike Pomeroy (Ford) her star signing over on, er, Daybreak... where Diane Keaton’s Colleen Peck is the channel’s female anchor?
Directed by Roger Michel whose CV from Notting Hill to Changing Lanes suggests he enjoys the challenge of making movies on both sides of the Atlantic but Morning Glory would have been more amusing if it wasn’t so contrived. And if Harrison Ford hadn’t become so entrenched in playing the grumpy old man he was in Extraordinary Measures last year.
The ageless and still-geeky Jeff Goldblum is the best cast star as network manager Jerry Barnes who gives Fuller her big chance. The pick of them all is Matt Molloy as weatherman Ernie Appleby who delivers far more humour than Ford. GY
THE DILEMMA *
Cert 12A, 111 mins
There should be no dilemma about whether or not to see this film. Just don’t.
It is hard to believe it’s directed by Ron Howard, the Oscar winner who brought us such great films as Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind and Frost/Nixon.
Watching it is an increasingly frustrating experience as we experience stupid situations, woeful dialogue and unsympathetic characters, for almost two hours. I was itching to walk out.
Some inkling of its mediocrity is suggested by the casting of Vince Vaughn as Ronny, who’s in business with his best friend Nick (Kevin James, a short and chubbier version of Vaughn).
They’re trying to put together an electric car deal with Chrysler when Ronny spots Nick’s wife Geneva (Winona Ryder) kissing another man.
It’s clear she’s having an affair with younger, sexier, tattooed Zip (Channing Tatum), but Ronny agonises about whether or not to tell his friend.
He confronts Geneva and finds himself embroiled in their marriage problems, which we really don’t want to be.
His odd behaviour – following Geneva and trying to photograph her in flagrante – convinces Ronny’s girlfriend Beth (Jennifer Connelly) that he’s gambling again.
The intrusive, loud music is distracting, but then it didn’t take much for my attention to wander.
Queen Latifah is brought in for a strange, brief role in which she has to utter awful lines like “I want to have sex with your words.”
The Dilemma tries to be several things and doesn’t work at any of them.
It fails as a comedy and as a deep and meaningful film about friendship and marriage.
It’s just a failure, full stop. RL
