Black Swan – Film Review

Nina (Natalie Portman) is a ballerina whose passion for the dance rules every facet of her life. When the company’s artistic director decides to replace his prima ballerina for their opening production of “Swan Lake,” Nina is his first choice. She has competition in newcomer Lily (Mila Kunis) however. While Nina is perfect for the role of the White Swan, Lily personifies the Black Swan. As rivalry between the two dancers transforms into a twisted friendship, Nina’s dark side begins to emerge.

From the opening scene of Black Swan, director Darren Aronofsky proves that he knows what he’s doing. This is an incredibly uncomfortable, slow-burn-style film that constantly leaves you guessing and on edge, refusing to let go of its menacing grip. Heck, even the end credits screen is intimidating. It almost seems as if the end credits puts the finishing cherry on top of an already terrifying movie.

On the surface, Black Swan looks to be some sort of strange ballerina horror film. And, that’s kind of what it is except that it goes so much deeper with each passing scene. Fairly quickly into the film, Natalie Portman’s character Nina Sayers begins to see herself in another one of the ballet dancers. Literally. Obviously, if you saw your face on another person’s body, you’d be quite freaked out, and Nina is.

The first time this happens in the film is when things really start to get intriguing. Black Swan is the type of movie that plenty of mainstream audiences are simply not going to enjoy. They’ll likely say it was a boring “horror” film with Portman dancing around and seeing things and that’s it. But I strongly urge you to look deeper into the film because only then will you start to see the film’s themes such as the pressure of pure perfection which is the number one most common theme in the film.

So many of us strive to be perfect at what we do every single day, but at what cost? At what point do we put down out foot and say “enough is enough”? And at what point do we recognize that we’ll never be perfect, but we can be our best? Do some of us even realize this? Black Swan is absolutely brilliant at exploring these themes. It’s the kind of movie that’ll leave you thinking about it long after the credits roll.

All of the lead performances here are great, but especially Portman’s. This is one of her best performances to date, and easily her most unsettling. There’s something… off about her character at times. We are eventually forced to view Nina in a different lens. This obviously requires a great actress to sell these scenes, and Portman does an incredible job at doing so. She is truly magnificent here.

Although the film can, at times, bite off more than it can chew, Black Swan is a wildly disturbing look at the price of perfection, boosted by a brilliant lead performance from Natalie Portman.