Nina (Natalie Portman) is a professional ballerina with a New York City ballet company. She lives and breathes ballet. Nina still lives with her mother. That way she can focus solely on ballet, while her mother takes care of everything else. However, Nina’s mother, Erica (Barabara Hershey), is overly protective and controlling. Their relationship is strained and it has definitely taken a toll on Nina. Plus, outside of ballet and her mother, Nina really doesn’t have anything or anyone. All she wants is to be the perfect ballerina and the featured dancer of the company. That spot is taken though and it belongs to Beth (Winona Ryder).
That is until the company director (Vincent Cassel) decides he wants fresh talent to represent the company’s new season. He has decided to open with Swan Lake and he needs a dancer that can play two roles, that of the innocent White Swan and the strong and sensual Black Swan. He eventually selects Nina for the role, because she is the perfect White Swan. At the same though he isn’t entirely convinced she has what it takes to play the Black Swan. Lily (Mila Kunis) on the other hand is the ideal Black Swan.
Lily is the newest member of the company and right off the bat she attempts to befriend Nina. As their friendship unfolds and it gets closer to opening night of the production, Nina starts to doubt and question Lily’s true intentions. Nina sees her more and more as a rival. With Lily’s influence though, Nina is starting to find the Black Swan within her. This new side of her seems to be slowly taking over and weird things are happening. Can Nina successfully play both roles without losing herself completely in the Black Swan? And is Lily really trying to sabotage Nina’s dream?
Critics and tons of filmgoers are saying this film is amazing. I thought it was really good. What keeps it from being amazing is that the plot is just too predictable. I wanted more twists. With that said I still really enjoyed it and recommend it. FYI, there is a lot of actual ballet in the film. Personally, I loved all the dancing, but that’s probably because secretly I wish I was a professional dancer. On another note, the acting in the film was phenomenal. I also enjoyed how eerie the movie was at times. Overall, this movie is definitely worth checking out wherever and whenever you can.
wow, really? i thought it was beautifully written and wonderfully twisted.
Yeah we saw it last night and we loved it. This is a 5 star for me. I wouldn’t call this film predictable as in “I can guess every twist” but more in the sense of “I know where this is leading.” There was a lot of metaphors and a lot of foreshadowing, but in no way made it “predictable.”
i saw this last night, and i, too, found it to be quite predictable. i kept waiting for something truly (not predictably) shocking to happen, but it never did. nevertheless, i found myself in awe of the acting and cinematography. amazing!