Black Swan (2010) Review

“So a happy ending then”

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

When you’re surpassing the breaking point, that’s not guaranteed to be a good thing.


PLOT


2010’s Black Swan follows ballerina Nina Sayers who lives in New York with her former ballerina mother Erica. She dances at the New York City Ballet, that plans to open the season with Swan Lake. With prima ballerina Beth forced into retirement, artistic director Thomas Leroy seeks a new lead for the dual role of Odette the White Swan & Odile the Black Swan. Nina would be flawless as the former, but Thomas doesn’t think she’s yet to embody the latter. Nina does beg him to reconsider the next day, but he only chooses to give her the role after she turns down her advances. When she later goes with him to a gala in celebration of the season, but Nina gets uncomfortable when Beth accuses her to have slept with Thomas for the part. And the next day, it is discovered that the predecessor got hit by a car, making her injuries so severe she won’t dance again. As rehearsals go on, Nina meets a newcomer named Lily who has a physical resemblance towards her. In between having hallucinations of seeing a doppelgänger and finding scratch marks on her back, she goes out to a club with her and ignores her mom’s objections for the first time. She then takes Thomas’ advice to heart to be more seductive by flirting with men and having sex with Lily. When waking up the next day, Lily confirms their affair was just a dream. Since she arrived late for rehearsal, she catches her dancing as Odile, making her worry she’s after her role, especially when she becomes the alternate. With her mysteries and hallucinations worsening, she starts to think she is the black swan she desires to portray. She only goes through with performing after a physical encounter with Erica and demanding Thomas the role for herself. It all goes well up until the second act, due to another hallucination causing her to lose her balance and slip. When she prepares for the Odile portion of the show, she apparently sees Lily transform into her doppelgänger and decides to kill her with a shard of glass, hiding her body in the process. Becoming a black swan for the remainder becomes as flawless as she hoped and the audience applauses her performance, inspiring her to kiss Thomas passionately. When returning to the dressing room again, she’s congratulated by Lily who she thought to have killed, realizing she stabbed herself the whole time. Despite the revelation, she still does the final act while bleeding profusely. Just when the show concludes, everyone realizes what had happened to her and as Thomas calls for help, Nina shares how she reached perfection before drawing her last breath, concluding the film as the screen fades to white.


THOUGHTS


When I was a teenager, I unlocked my first level of being a cinephile by seeing something I never would’ve thought to see something so different from my preference until hearing a good word of mouth. That first instance truly occurred in 2010 with movies that started a new era of its own. Because of having seen The Wrestler in advance, I knew Director Darren Aronofsky had something special in its own way to behold. Little would people expect something far more intense. He and the writing team of Andres Heinz, Mark Heyman & John McLaughlin do a great job in showing us what a gripping environment the world of ballet can be for some who crave being the best in the business. The combined cinematography by Matthew Libatique and editing by Andrew Weisblum are on point in showing the consumption that can be felt in any line of work. Whenever you weren’t hearing the signature Swan Lake soundtrack, you’d feel appropriately intimidated by Clint Mansell’s score that puts in the emphasis of isolation & identity. With so many elements put together, I think this movie has stood the test of time recently because with an intentional one woman performance, you get to understand how much of a mental cost it can be to let the ambition and pressure of perfection guide you to where you want to be successfully, the results won’t go to your liking. Natalie Portman defines this mythos as Nina who has waited long enough to see others make their mark and decides to take advice of letting go just a little too far in order to get there. Seeing how perfect she saw Beth, no matter how actually self destructive Winona Ryder depicted her, you’re still sure Nina is taking the mindset worse. What I truly believe the moment where Portman earns her glory for awards season is the way her character stops caring about her well being and focuses only on what she wants. She ignores her mom who did her best in taking care of her, no matter how overprotective Barbara Hershey depicted Erica, and then she starts hurting before she can have some kind of recovery period to take advantage of. She becomes so obsessed with Lily and presumes her to be an enemy, even though Mila Kunis depicts her the most free spirited who have no motive other than friendship. Because of this, she assumes the only one giving her advice is her instructor. Vincent Cassel makes it easy in portraying Thomas as a strict figure who doesn’t have appropriate barriers when training dedicated women like Nina. His advice to not overthink it is the most essential for her to hear, but I don’t think he had to make advances on her to prove she needed to be seductive as Odile. Some would disagree, but that doesn’t make it better. The true takeaway of these notes she takes defines the climax because she had to mess up as Odette in order to nail the latter, even though she didn’t intend to do so. Sadly, the perfection she achieved didn’t save her life. With a story bound to end in tragedy, I hope everyone close to Nina take into account the difference of passion and desperation, otherwise they could too make the same mistakes without knowing it. This movie definitely becomes more dazzling to remember, but good stuff like this still have questionable moments look back on. For instance if Nina envisions Lily to be her doppelgänger, it doesn’t make sense for her to say she got off the train before 72nd Street as she says walked all the way from 79th. She could’ve just said she got lost to cover up where she might’ve went on the way to work. Heck, I’d also point out Erica messes up getting a big cake for her daughter knowing she’s got an intense diet to maintain for her job. Considering she was a former ballerina, she should know better, no matter the kindness she’s aiming for. Also, I don’t think it should’ve been a thing for an alternate to be decided so late into rehearsal when Nina only had one tardy. It’s one way to raise suspense, but I don’t think Thomas would’ve survived whatever true wrath Nina had within if she didn’t hold back on her paranoia. Ignore this, then you’ll still be impressed with the rest of what it’s going for. To wrap up, Black Swan is Aronofsky’s best work for being his be-all end-all in terms of a boundary pushing narrative of the toll in reaching perfection, earning its Best Picture nomination on the process. If you’re into such gripping dramas, see this now.