Film Review: Black Swan

**Note: spoiler alert**

I heard about Black Swan from a friend who told me to check out the trailer. After watching it I immediately wanted to see it. Then all of a sudden it blew up and everyone in New York (at least it seemed) was buzzing about it. The first night I went to see it I ended up calling a local theater in advance to make sure they had tickets for a particular time and I was informed that tickets had been sold out five hours prior to my call. Therefore, going into the movie I had very high expectations.

I thought Natalie Portman did a great job. I had heard even before seeing the movie that she had lost 20 lbs. for the role to have a body more like a ballerina's, but her acting in itself made her believable. I was so annoyed with her! I wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her sometimes which goes to show that she did the job right--she was able to evoke emotions and opinions from her audience. Better yet, she makes the audience contemplate the complexity of her character. Although the main character, Nina, played by Portman, is an adult, she still lives at home, she's an unassertive milquetoast, and she talks in a soft, whisper-like voice which makes you want to yell at her to speak up and grow a backbone. One deep-rooted issue Nina faces is her inability to really grow up. Her mother is rather smothering and she certainly crosses the mother-daughter boundaries considering Nina is an adult herself. Her mother even tucks her in bed still for heaven's sake!

A pivotal scene is when Nina allows herself to "explore" and let go a little by touching herself when she wakes up one morning, and just as she is starting to enjoy herself she looks over to find her mother asleep in a chair next to her bed. The scene shows the restrictions Nina faces as an unsure, dependent adult who is wishing to finally grow up. Her bedroom is decorated like that of a little girl's. The room and bedspread are pink and white and she still has dozens of stuffed animals. Inside she's wishing to break free, but her home environment and her mother are holding her back.

Nina has been oppressed for so long, her main struggle is the one with herself. Even though she does want to experience new things, sexual things, she holds herself back because it's unfamiliar and she cannot contemplate being anything other than pure. Nina so desperately wants to be the perfect ballerina. Her instructor even tells her that she has a near perfect technique, but unfortunately that's not enough, especially for the leading role of the company's new performance of Swan Lake*.

Nina's obsession with perfectionism is essentially what "births" her and destroys her at the same time. Her internal battle at trying to let go and be seductive enough to be a convincing black swan is too much for her to take. How can a single person be a black swan and a white swan when the roles are completely opposite? Her instructor tells her from the get-go that she is the model of a white swan and that her difficulty would be letting loose enough to transform into a black swan as well. The embodiment of both proves to be too much. She lashes out at her mom (although in my opinion it was about time), she starts hallucinating, and she becomes extremely paranoid and feels threatened.

What I found to be most interesting is that although Nina destroys herself by the end of the film, she's happy because she did become the perfect black and white swan.

Black Swan is twisted. The film forces you to pay close attention in order to try to distinguish if certain events are real or part of Nina's psychological breakdown.

I absolutely recommend this movie to others. It has been praised by both ballet lovers and non-ballet connoisseurs alike. Just go in knowing that it's a pretty heavy film. Be prepared to take a few minutes after watching the movie to let all of the fast-paced scenes sink in and to mull over the complex, entwined themes.

*Swan Lake is a ballet composed in 1875. Since the first performance, many different endings have been written.