Black Swan (2010)

 People Who Matter: 

Natalie Portman:  Nina Sayers

Mila Kunis:  Lily 

Barbara Hershey:  Erica Sayers

Vincent Cassel:  Thomas Leroy

Twenty minutes into this movie, I was sure I was going to hate it.  There is not a lot about ballet that interests me, and seeing women that are literally skin and bones compete against each other in such a gruesome and demanding field does nothing for me.  Yes, it is beautiful to watch but, to me at least, there are far more interesting forms of art I like to see.  However, even though it starts out slow as hell (because I'm not gonna lie, it really does start off excruciatingly slow and boring), it quickly switches into high gear.  There's a lot going on in this one.

Nina (Portman) is an extremely dedicated and hard-working ballet dancer at an exclusive New York ballet company.  When the part of the Swan Queen becomes available, she jumps at the opportunity.  However, although she is an excellent White Swan, being timid, shy, bashful, and extremely innocent, she does not have the makings of the Black Swan.  Regardless, her choreographer Thomas (Cassel) decides to take a chance on her, which I assume is so he can break her into the Black Swan role by seducing her, because he is a huge man-slut.   

Nina lives at home in a tiny apartment with her mom, Erica (Hershey).  Erica was once a dancer and you realize early on why Nina is such a meticulous perfectionist.  Her mother is the definition of over-bearing and controlling.  Obviously, she failed as a dancer and is living vicariously through her daughter.  It's clear that Nina enjoys ballet, but I couldn't help but wonder early on if she had a different upbringing if she would have ended up the way she was.  That kind of sheltering rarely has good outcomes on a child. 

In stark contrast with Nina's White Swan perfection is Lily (Kunis) who would be the perfect Black Swan.  She is new to the company, but what she lacks in precision and grace she more than makes up for in sexual passion and charisma.  If these two women could somehow be combined, the company would have the perfection re-imagination of Swan Lake.  Since that is not possible, Thomas resigns to have Lily spend some time with Nina and hopefully bring her out of her shell.  This doesn't exactly go well.  There is liquor, Ecstasy, and some girl sex.  On top of Lily's partying antics (and the fact that she may or may not be trying to steal the show from Nina), Thomas continuously tries to sleep with Nina, which I'm assuming will make her a better Black Swan. Although Nina claims she has had sex before, she sure doesn't act like it. 

Throughout the movie it becomes clear that Nina is slowly but surely losing herself completely in her art.  She is literally driving herself crazy.  She herself can't tell the difference between what is real and what she is imagining, leaving it quite difficult for the audience.  That being said, director Darren Aronofsky doesn't leave us out to dry, showing some deviation between reality and what's going on in Nina's fucked up head. 

The performances were amazing in every role.  Portman does an excellent job of playing an innocent ballet dancer, and then morphs herself into a lunatic.  Kunis is always solid, regardless of the role, and I think she made the perfect frenemy to Portman.  They worked very well together.  Hershey was downright creepy in the mother role.  Cassel oozed sexuality and commanded the screen.

Thankfully, Black Swan stops before it became an all-out psycho movie.  It ends exactly where it needs to, in exactly the way it needs to. 

9.5 out of 10