Natalie Portman Generates Oscar Buzz for Racy Role (wow)

The film is earning early Oscar buzz for Portman, 29, who “hyper-trained” for the six months for the extremely physical role, and who shares a steamy lesbian love scene in the movie with actress Mila Kunis. The director, Darren Aronofsky, “talked to me about this sex scene in our first meeting eight years ago,” Portman told reporters in Venice, according to Reuters. A steamy love scene between the actresses and elements of violence and horror make it a departure from clean-cut on-screen roles often associated with Portman. It’s so damn out-there in every way that you can’t help admiring Aronofsky for daring to be so very, very absurd. “Swan” is an instant guilty pleasure, a gorgeously shot, visually complex film whose badness is what’s so good about it. You might howl at the sheer audacity of mixing mental illness with the body-fatiguing, mind-numbing rigors of ballet, but its lurid imagery and a hellcat competition between two rival dancers is pretty irresistible. The Times UK said Portman in “astounding” and “awards are sure to follow.” The Independent opted for words like “searing” and “enthralling” in its review .

“I think if you want to be a dancer it has to be a vocation. I’ve yet to find it difficult, but I’ve always ended up being with, not like-minded, but passion-minded artists every time I’ve done it. But it’s barely September. But she heads into the dance studio every day to pirouette on bloody toes and strain every muscle in her body. I’m willing to believe Portman is terrific in Aronofsky’s film. “I might have an idea about an actor in it, or the director in it or something, but I really don’t know what to expect and it’s all over the world there and so usually when you watch the movie, you don’t know what you’re going to see until it starts playing and it either grabs you or it doesn’t.” Other films in the main competition include Sophia Coppola’s Somewhere, Julian Schnabel’s Miral, starring Freida Pinto and Willem Dafoe, and France’s Francois Ozon’s Potiche, which features Gerard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve. Festival director Marco Mueller has opted for youth in his choice of directors of the 23 competition films, and he will also hope that the presence of Hollywood mavericks can make up for the expected shortage of A-list celebrities this year. Only Aronofsky suggests, right from an opening dream sequence, that Nina might be cracking up. It was very extreme.” Reviews have been mostly positive for the film, and glowing for Portman. The Hollywood Reporter says the actress “bravely ventured out of her comfort zone to play a character slowly losing sight of herself.