Black Swan

Rating: 9/10 (10 April 2011)

Natalie Portman (V for Vendetta, Closer) portrays Nina Sayers a young ballerina getting the lead in a Swan Lake production, and Mila Kunis (Forgetting Sarah Marshall)plays Lily who is Nina's understudy in the ballet.
Black Swan also features Vincent Cassel (Eastern Promises) as Thomas Leroy the shows Director, Winona Ryder (A Scanner Darkly) as Beth Macintyre, and Barbara Hershey as Nina's mother Erica. Thomas encourages Nina to let go of herself in her performances so that she can emulate the black swan that Beth was previously playing well in the ballet production.
Beth is shown to be completely out of control ballerina who becomes suicidal after Nina gets the lead role. Nina actually drops by Beth's hospital room after an accident and appears to be sorry that Beth has taken the loss of the role so hard.
Thomas also tells Nina to start becoming more sexually active so that he can make a pass at her, and to ad more feeling to Odile the black swan. Another subplot that develops is a relationship between Nina, and her understudy Lily.
One of the hotter scenes in the movie occurs when Nina, and Lily are drinking and dropping ecstasy at a bar with some guys. Nina has a fantasy of kissing Lily, and of Lily performing cunnilingus on her clitoris, after she gets home.
Nina seems to fall apart psychologically as she embraces the black swan, and becomes anorexic, and schizophrenic. Nina at times loses contact with reality, and starts to become increasingly self destructive.
In her first show as the lead in Black Swan Nina makes errors on her white swan Princess Odette, but appears to be doing well on the black swan dances. Nina has another psychological break when she believes she has stabbed Lily, but we later find out that Nina has cut herself, and is bleeding profusely at the end of the show.
Natalie Portman gave an extraordinary performance as Nina, and she won an Oscar for Best Actress. Black Swan was also well directed by Darren Aronofsky who received a Best Director nomination for his work.
Portman fans who like her darker roles like Alice in Closer will really enjoy this movie.