Unpleasant thriller

Rating: Null/10 (5 May 2011)

Nina (Natalie Portman) is a troubled, young ballerina who lives her life in an endless and hopeless pursuit of perfection. When the company's lecherous director gives her the star role of the Swan Queen, he expects her to put out and be more like the sensuous Black Swan character and less like the demure White Swan. Her deeply conflicted psyche creates a world of illusion, chaos, and terror as she gives in to her dark side.
We know early on that Nina has a loose grip on reality and that nothing we see is real. Given the dark storyline, one would expect an exciting movie, but I actually found it predictable. Portman gives a one-note performance, always frightened and helpless but never showing a range of emotions until the very end. There are several violent and sexual scenes intended to show her fragile state of mind, but they are often over-the-top and downright gross. While rail-thin Portman does convince us she's a ballerina and the dance sequences are lovely, the other characters are unlikable and rather stereotypical. Barbara Hershey is repellant as Nina's disturbed mother and sassy Mila Kunis, as Nina's rival, is also fairly loathsome.
This psychological thriller is more off-putting than entertaining and frankly, I was glad when it was over.