Black Swan
Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel
My Rating: ★★★★★
Black Swan is the story of a young ballerina, Nina (played by Natalie Portman), and her psyche as she takes on the role of the duplicitous swan queen at her ballet company. The film details Nina’s mental struggle while attempting to fulfill her role, often depicting sequences of psychosis. Black Swan also illustrates the competition within Nina’s ballet company for the character and its effects on her peers.
The film begins when Nina’s ballet company announces they are putting on a variation of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. The variation involves a sole ballerina portraying the role of both the innocent white swan and the seductive black swan. After forcing prima ballerina Elizabeth MacIntyre into retirement, the director, Thomas Leroy, announces that he is looking for a new dancer. Nina auditions and flawlessly portrays the white swan but fell short when it came to the black swan. Nina approached Thomas asking him to reconsider, but instead, he forcibly kissed her. In response to this, Nina bit his lip and ran away.
The next day, Nina discovers the cast list, and to her surprise, she is cast as the lead. Soon after, Nina discovers that Elizabeth was hit by a car. Thomas suspects that she attempted suicide, but when Nina visits her in the hospital, she discovers that her leg is severely injured, which would prevent her from dancing again.
During rehearsals, Thomas tells Nina to observe a newcomer, Lily, who has qualities that Nina lacks for the black swan. Nina begins having hallucinations and finds scratch marks on her back. One night, Nina reluctantly accepts Lily’s invitation to go out for drinks. Lily offers Nina a tablet of ecstasy, which Nina hesitantly takes after reassurance from Lily. After partying at the bar, Nina returns home, which she shares with her controlling mother, Lily. Following an argument with her mother, Nina barricades herself in her room and engages in sexual acts with Lily. The following morning she wakes up and realizes she is late for dress rehearsal.
When Nina arrives, she sees Lily dancing her role and confronts her about their night together. She seems confused when Nina insinuates that they had sex and denies going home with her. Nina then becomes convinced that Lily aspires to take her role, especially after Thomas names her Nina’s alternate. Nina’s hallucinations grow very intense, and her injuries similarly deepen. Nina’s mother traps her in their house on opening night after calling the company saying the role has been too much for her. Even so, Nina arrives at the company and demands her role back, assuming that Lily has stolen it already.
During the ballet’s second act, Nina suffers continued hallucinations, which causes her male counterpart to drop her onstage, infuriating Thomas. She returns to her dressing room to find Lily preparing to take the stage. During their confrontation, Lily transforms into Nina, causing the two to fight. They break a mirror, and Nina stabs her doppelgänger with a shard of glass. The body reverts to Lily, and Nina hides her bleeding corpse in the bathroom of her dressing room. After the incident, Nina takes the stage.
She dances flawlessly and seemingly transforms into a black swan, her arms covered in feathers. Amidst a standing ovation from the audience, Nina returns to her dressing room to prepare the white swan makeup and costume. She hears a knock on the door, which she answers only to find Lily alive. She apologized for their misunderstandings and congratulated her on the performance. Confused, Nina sees the broken mirror, but there is no blood or corpse. She looks down and pulls a piece of glass from her abdomen, realizing that she stabbed herself, not Lily.
Nina dances the final act, which ends with throwing herself off a cliff and landing on a mattress. The theatre erupts in applause while, amidst congratulations from her peers, Nina lies on the floor. Thomas sees the blood spreading from her waist and yells for help. When Thomas asks her what happened, Nina replies that she was finally perfect as the screen fades to white.