"It's MY turn!"

Rating: 6/10 (28 February 2014)

Natalie Portman adequately plays Nina, a slightly over-the-hill ballerina who's subject to hallucinations and self-mutilation, not to mention jealous cohorts, a perverted exploitative slimeball dance director, and a creepy overbearing mother who's a retired ballerina herself. Her primary nemesis--besides, perhaps, herself?--is Lily, a rival fellow dancer and eerie younger lookalike well-played by Mila Kunis.
I really tried to like BLACK SWAN. Its whole plot and set-up is something nicely different, and it at least begins to allow us some empathy with a victim of SIB, raising (however briefly) interesting questions regarding victim-victimizer relationships. The whole premise of how ballet imitates life and vice versa and how all the major players here are also dancers in life's suite has a lot of potential; unfortunately, it just doesn't play out as well as it could and probably won't mean that much to the average viewer. This film also constantly tries for scary and suspenseful, but the effect is just silly.
This might have worked better as a more conventional drama (keeping the symbolic roles) about the cutthroat competition and jealousies that take place between dancers who try to sabotage each others' careers and performances. It also would have helped immensely if the symphonic soundtrack had been saved for the dance performances and not pervaded the bar scenes, Nina's apartment, and everywhere else.