In 2008, Darren Aronofsky told the compelling story of an aging professional wrestler fighting to keep his career alive. Now, in 2010, he tells the story of a young ballerina fighting to rise to stardom with her only obstacle being herself.
Black Swan centers on Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), a 20-something year-old professional ballerina living in New York City with her overbearing mother (Barbara Hershey). Because of her timid, perfectionist nature, Nina has never been a featured dancer in any of her company’s performances. However, with prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder) being asked to retire, the part of the Swan Queen in the company’s production of Swan Lake is given to Nina, despite director Thomas Leroy’s (Vincent Cassel) hesitation. As Nina struggles to channel the dark, uninhibited Black Swan, she develops a strange, rivalrous friendship with Lily (Mila Kunis), a free-spirited dancer who is new to the company and much more fit for the role of the Swan Queen. The pressure Nina puts on herself, fueled by Thomas and her mother, causes her to completely lose touch with reality by the opening night of the show.
This film proves itself to be a compelling, highly stylized psychological thriller driven by Aronofsky’s direction and Portman and Kunis’s performances. Aronofsky’s vision is daring yet timeless, a balance achieved through a mixture of classic symbolisms and manic plot movements. The way he shadows Nina with his lens rather than watching her from afar puts the audience in the thick of her downward spiral, setting the film’s suspenseful tone. In addition, Portman’s turn as the disturbed ballerina is nothing less than enthralling from beginning to end and her chemistry with Kunis exudes raw, organic emotion. I cannot give enough credit to these three major players because they all faced the challenge of a script lacking in passion. Much of the dialog, especially in the film’s opening scenes, is far too cut-and-dry and worn thin by cliché. Portman and Kunis succeed in overcoming this problem, however, Hershey and Cassel struggle to even get their performances off the ground. Though Black Swan as a whole manages to rise above this hiccup, I cannot help but wish that the script had been as strong as the rest of the film’s components.
In my opinion, Aronofsky’s commentary on the dangers of striving for control and perfection makes Black Swan 2010’s most haunting film. You cannot help but fall victim to its tantalizing grip.
Rating: 5/5
