Black Swan

Year: 2010

Running time: 108 minutes

Certificate: 15

Language: English

Screenplay: Mark Heyman, Andrés Heinz, John McLaughlin

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder, Benjamin Millepied

In pursuit of perfection.

Black Swan is beautiful, thrilling, incredible and horrifying, sometimes all at once, and is still the best both director Darren Aronofsky and star Natalie Portman have ever been. Nina Sayers (Portman) is a ballerina, and has spent some years obsessively perfecting her style at a ballet company in New York. Dance is everything in Nina's life; the only thing in Nina's life. No doubt some of Nina's obsessiveness can be attributed to her mother Erica (Barbara Hershey), whom she still lives with. Erica also used to be a ballet dancer and is monstrous in her determination to push Nina to attend the heights she never did, obsessively controlling and focused on dance and only dance.

When the director of the company Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) announces the company are going to be putting on a new production of Swan Lake, Nina is given her chance as Leroy puts the company's prima ballerina Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder) into retirement and gives the lead to Nina. There is a problem, and that problem is that Nina can perfectly pull off the role of the White Swan, which requires grace and innocence, but she cannot embody the role of the Black Swan, full of sexual sensuality and deception. A newcomer to the company, Lily (Mila Kunis, also on career-best form) however, can. So if Nina cannot find it within herself to perform the dual roles equally well, she risks losing the chance she has been chasing.

What follows is a descent into darkness, obsession with perfection and a struggle not to lose one's mind. Nina and Lily become rivals, friends and lovers, but some of it is only in Nina's head. Nina's all-consuming obsession begins to blur the lines between feverish imagination and reality until she is not really able to tell the difference, and the second half of the film takes a rather dark turn in to a disturbing horror.

Is it real? Or all in your head?

Nina's single-minded determination to nail the part perfectly reminds me a little of Whiplash, although as good as Miles Teller is in that, Natalie Portman is just astonishing. While Teller convinces me of his character's determination to be the best as well as his arrogance, Portman takes it several steps further and delivers a striking portrayal of fraying sanity in the pursuit of a perfect performance and the toll it takes.

The climax is exhilarating and frightening, as Nina gives everything to her moment in the spotlight in an exceptionally crafted set piece of ballet that is made thrilling by the preceding time spent following Nina down this rabbit hole.

Inspired yet disturbing, this is top-tier filmmaking.

Score: 9/10

Black Swan is pretty well reviewed out there - see these write ups from Roger Ebert, who compared it to The Red Shoes, which is no small praise, and from Peter at Rolling Stone.