TheRetroCritic

Darren Aronofsky's latest has done very well for itself. Then again, after The Wrestler , anything by the man behind Requiem For a Dream , Pi and The Fountain would have been highly anticipated. And rightly so. Marketed as a classy if dark mindf***, Black Swan promised an odd, stylish, original and potentially impressive ride. Surprisingly the result was about as classy as a Burger King karaoke party and far more twisted than expected. Unfortunately, it all feels far too derivative of many other ideas and far too forced to be a flawless treat. You've essentially got three films in one here: the modern version of Swan Lake (sophisticated, raw, powerful), The Fly (or, rather, The Swan) and The Piano Teacher (or, rather, The Dance Teacher) with bits of Lynch and Aronofsky's own Wrestler thrown in. And as much as I love all the influences involved here, Black Swan is an experiment which just didn't work for me. What killed The Fountain for me was n