Winona Ryder stars as one of four girls named Heather in a high school clique. Christian Slater (who exudes the easy, relaxed charisma of a young Jack Nicholson) is new student Jason “J.D.” Dean, who begins murdering anyone who wrongs him.
It’s tonally strange – a little like a much nastier Clueless – but there’s plenty of wit and intelligence among the morbid and tasteless elements.
Portman is excellent as the ambitious but conflicted dancer who undergoes a remarkable transformation into the swan in the interests of achieving technical perfection.
Directed by Darren Aronofsky, it’s filmed in a striking way, with tropes from horror films cleverly deployed to add suspense and scary drama.
It completely lacks charm or intrigue. The sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll feels forced and clichéd. None of the characters seems to care about anything, so why should we care about them? It makes the mistake of being every bit as empty, vacuous and depressing as the world it portrays.
There’s an all-star cast including Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, Winona Ryder, Mickey Rourke and Chris Isaak, and some of the individual performances are reasonable enough. But none stand out and the film doesn’t really hang together. What works well on the page seems flat and even annoying in this jarring, unrewarding mess.
