Black Swan

Directed by Darren Aronofsky. Written by Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz, and John J. McLaughlin. Starring Natalie Portman (Nina Sayers/The Swan Queen), Mila Kunis (Lily/ The Black Swan), Vincent Cassel (Thomas Leroy/ The Gentleman).

Bottom line: Black Swan is a great psychological thriller/adaptation of Swan Lake; it’s a solid movie.
3.5/4

We follow Nina Sayers (Portman) who is going into her third or fourth year as a New York ballerina. Swan Lake is the ballet of the season and Nina is looking forward to getting a main part; the director promised her something more than a minor part because she’s so talented and dedicated. “Looking forward to,” is something of an understatement though; she is desperate, if for no other reason than to appease her domineering mother. The stress of trying to get the role is overwhelming. It mixes with her fears and anxieties about the competition from the new spunky, sexy dancer, Lily (Kunis). Weird and creepy things start to happen as Nina starts to breakdown.

I’m not going to say really anything else about the story other than that the movie incorporates Swan Lake is a really great way. Sometimes movies that are called “adaptations” are really more attempts to directly translate a story to the silver screen. Black Swan, however, takes source material and changes it to a new situation. Now that’s what I call an adaptation.

The cinematography is great and the music is spectacular. This is a solid movie. It isn’t too scary either. I heard it was creepy but because it’s a psychological thriller, that helps; you know that a lot of the stuff is in her head. It’s not like a monster is going to get her and then you.

I’m not surprised Natalie Portman won the Academy Award for her performance; she did a darn good job. Mila Kunis gave a great performance too. It gave me a newfound respect for her, actually. I’ve always associated her with expensive but lame movies like Friends with Benefits (2011) or Jupiter Ascending (2015) but I’ve been slowly warming up to her.

Although, now that I look at the dates of those movies, it would seem that she is going kinda downhill because Black Swan came out in 2010… but this is to say that she is capable of a solid role. I mean, look at Nicholas Cage. His name on a movie poster is like the red X on the door of a plague victim. But! But, I say, he did win an Academy Award for Leaving Las Vegas so he has (or at least had) the ability to do it.

Any-who, I think this can be a short (largely) spoiler free review (depending on how you define spoilers I suppose). I’d highly recommend Black Swan.

Have you seen Black Swan? What did you think of it? Thanks for reading and I invite you to leave a comment below!