If you ever had dreams of becoming a ballerina you would soon change your mind after watching this film, which reveals the extremes dancers go to in the hope of being chosen as the principal dancer.
More worryingly this truth does not seem surprising, with dancers preparing to sleep with the company's director, take drugs and starve themselves all for a part. But despite all this you feel empathy for the girls in the film who have so much passion for ballet that it become's their life's purpose, even though it's such a short-lived career.
Natalie Portman captures this spirit perfectly as Nina, a shy and retiring type, living with her mum who treats her like a 10-year-old, in order to live her life through her child having given up her ballet career years ago to have her. However this all changes when Nina is given the role of the Swan Queen in the company's (New York Ballet) contemporary performance of Swan Lake, where she is required to play two parts, the good White Swan, and her evil twin the Black Swan. While the White Swan presents no challenge to Nina, who is pure and virginal, the Black Swan is. Determined not to loose the part after convincing herself that another of the girl's-Lily, is after her role, she delves into a dark, monstrous side of her personality, even trying an illegal high, which accenuates her paranoia and psychosis, as her life starts to play out like the Swan Queen's.
Cue confusion and the use of symbolism as sub text, as the cinema goer is drawn into Nina's dark world, questioning what is real and fantasy. Does Lily really exist? What happened between Lily and Nina in her dressing room? and Was it suicide or murder?
At the end of the film you can't help feeling touched by the story, which finishes with Nina getting her wish to perform the lead role on opening night, but so accurately that she embodies the White Swan whole-heartedly.
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