Archive 1997-2016
For Joel & Ethan Coen, who have been puréeing genres and defying expectations since their director’s chair was a two-seater crib, the biggest surprise of all could only be to make a film without surprises.
Like a companion piece to the director’s previous film, The Wrestler, Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan focuses on another sort of physically and mentally gruelling performance art. But substituting ballet for professional wrestling and swapping in Natalie Portman’s diminutive femininity in place of Mickey Rourke as ultra-macho Randy “The Ram” Robinson does a lot more than reverse the gender polarity and replace one set of professional jargon with another.
Perhaps it’s only because it’s robbed of its conclusion – or even just of the humour that can inflect a bleak-plotted book more easily than its purposely dark cinematic counterpart – but so far The Deathly Hallows feels like a series of cheap plot devices.
In the summer of 2003 Aron Ralston rose to fame for surviving five days pinned by his arm under a boulder while exploring canyons in Utah. A typical reaction from someone learning about the price Ralston ultimately paid for his life and freedom tended to involve the question, “What if that had been me?”