Black Swan (2010 movie)- Review

Directed by: Daren Aronofsky
Released: 2010
Country: United States

Genres: Horror, Psychological Thriller, Drama, Mystery

Main cast: Natalie Porter, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Review

Dark, grim, scary, disgusting, strange, beautiful, ''Black Swan'', directed by Daren Aronofsky is a great movie indeed. It is a disturbing and dark film, but oh, it's so beautiful and intense! Natalie Portman, in her role as the protagonist, delivers a brilliant performance in this horror film.

It is a weird film, I repeat, with the overall thing disturbing, strange, confusing and dark. Yet it is made with so much skill, and it has so much intensity and power in it that easily makes it among the best pictures of 2010.

The film centers on Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman). She is a ballet dancer. She is beautiful, timid, innocent, and with a lovely personality. Her mother is a former dancer.

Celebrated ballet dancer Beth (Winona Ryder) has to retire because of her age. The director, Thomas Leroy, starts seeking for a dancer who can perform the roles of both the beautiful White Swan and her seductive twin, the Black Swan, in ''Swan Lake''. Thomas finds Nina just too suitable to be the White Swan only, but he thinks Nina will have difficulty to immerse herself into the role of the Black Swan. Nevertheless, after an incident, he accepts her to play both the swans in ''Swan Lake''.

Nina has difficulty to fit into the role of the Black Swan, but then we realize that the role is getting her completely insane. She starts getting immersed into the darker side of the character, her sweet and timid character starts changing as she slowly transforms...

There's another important character in the story, Lily (Mila Kunis), a new dancer,  who...

The film creates a dark, grim, and oft-scary, thrilling, suspenseful, and dramatic situations by the use of darkness. The sets, and the dark and smooth cinematography are delightful enough. A mentionable thing is that it doesn't have much brightness and the lighting is never that bright. The dark and gloomy atmosphere that is created is wonderful. Along with this, there are the background music which are mostly so beautiful.

  The overall film is strange enough: at times we come to know of Nina's hallucinations, and we come across a number of surprises and twists which I won't like to reveal here.

Then there are the costumes, and the makeup, which are all so very pretty! 

Natalie Portman's acting is extremely good and she indeed deserved the Oscar which she won for this film. From her portrayal of the timid and soft ballet dancer Nina, to her darker side, her hallucinations, her shocks upon thinking about what is happening- it is extremely well-acted by Portman. Mila Kunis is present as Lily, another weird role, and she gives a much good performance. Barbara Hershey is excellent as Nina's mother, a former ballet dancer who is somewhat stubborn and strange. Vincent Cassel as the director John is excellent. Winona Ryder is good enough. The others who are present remain simply minor supporting characters.

In spite of the disgusts and extremely disturbing element that sometimes gets too intense (at one very disturbing scene, I looked away), the film is, oh, so very beautiful. ''Black Swan'' is a strange film, weird and disturbing, dark and sometimes violent, but it's a very excellent film. 

4.5 out of 5!