It's about a dancer with metaphors to convey emotions.

Rating: 10/10 (31 December 2010)

This would be my vote for the best movie of 2010. Nothing else I have seen even comes close.
The movie concerns a dancer, Nina, who has done nothing but dance her entire life. This is partly the doing of her mother played very well by Barbara Hershey. Nina's mother is very protective and controlling were her daughter is concerned and seems to have little else in her life. It becomes clear during the movie that she is somewhat living vicariously through Nina, and her success. The relationship that Nina has with her mother is very important because it is as narrow and single minded as Nina's pursuit of dance. Nina's mother has so controlled and narrowed her life that Nina is completely innocent in the ways of the world. This "stage mother" has created the "perfect" dancer.
Nina is happily dancing in a very professional dance company when the opportunity comes dance Swan Lake. She has dreamt of becoming the white swan before she knew that the company was planning this production. This is the first important — and the only really obvious — metaphor in the movie announcing her profound innocence. Nina ends up getting the role of the swan queen, but learns that in this version she must dance both the white swan and the black swan.
The remainder of the movie is about Nina struggling to dance the role of the black swan. To no one's surprise, the white swan role is easy for her. To live her dream of becoming a prima ballerina, she must be able to dance this role. She succeeds wonderfully, dancing better than she has ever danced, or was capable of dancing until this point. Her mother, who shows during several scenes, that she does love her daughter and is trying to help, is very pleased.
Many people will misunderstand the portrayal of Nina's struggle to mature into this role. She must reject the complete control of her mother, but not her mother's love (very tricky). She must learn something about sexuality, both within herself and with the male dancers that she must seduce on stage. She must learn to assert herself.
How to you show emotional turmoil and angst on a movie screen? How do you show the maturing of a girl into a woman? The writers and director of this film chose to convey this with a metaphor of psychosis. It is difficult at times to separate the metaphors which convey Nina's emotional awakening and maturing with actual events. We all have strange and random thoughts at times inside our own heads, and seeing Nina's portrayed so viscerally can be disturbing.
Please see this movie, or see it again and realize that it has a happy ending. In the end Nina has become what her and her mother most desired, the prima ballerina. Don't be fooled into thinking all the blood and other things are real. These are metaphors which should allow you to see into Nina's emotions. I am a very emotional and empathic person. I cried at several points during the movie and was absolutely sobbing at the end. Not because it was sad, but because it was so happy. The communication of emotional content by the movie was more than I could easily handle, and much more than any movie I can recall seeing in a very, very long time.