My mother was right all along! Darren Aronofsky, the director of The Black Swan, agrees. Balance is everything.

Nina tries to be the sweet, innocent girl her overprotective, smothering mother demands of her. She wears white and pink, sleeps in a frilly, pink bedroom fit for a teenager and lives only for ballet. Until the role of a lifetime comes along.

In a nutshell

Sweet Nina lands the role of the Swan Queen in Swan Lake. Dancing the White Swan comes easy to Nina as she has always desperately tried being only ‘good’. The Black Swan turns out to be the challenge as she needs to accept her dark side.

Mood of the film

Aronofsky carefully blends reality and Nina’s hallucinations into a dark, tour de force psychological thriller.

Best one liner

Erica (Barbara Hershey): You’re not my Nina right now!

Best scene

When Nina ultimately dances as The Black Swan and grows wings.

Best performance

Natalie Portman shines as she always does. She is breathtaking, and quite intentionally irritating, as the utterly vulnerable Nina.

The Godmother of stellar performances, Barbara Hershey, puts in a skin-crawlingly excellent performance as the unbalanced, overprotective mother.

Mila Kunis does not have a lot of screen time, but she puts her all into ‘Lily’, that at first seems competitive and ‘dark’, but is ultimately the most balanced, caring character of the film.

What makes the film relevant today?

We could all do with embracing our dark side and bringing it into the light. Suppressing it only leads to an unbalanced life removed from reality.

FYI

Natalie Portman suggested her friend Mila Kunis for the role of Lily. Darren Aronofsky then offered it to her without an audition and using Skype!

Rotten Tomatoes score

88%

My score

85%

Boring details

Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey and Vincent Cassel

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Running time: 102min