Black Swan

Black Swan is not your typical psychological thriller as it most likely takes place in director Darren Aronofsky's mind, and that is a frightening place my friends.

Those of you who are not familiar with Mr. Aronofsky's past work (Pi, 1998; Requiem for a Dream, 2000; The Fountain, 2006; and The Wrestler, 2008) you are in for a treat, or more eloquently put, a mind fuck.

Black Swan and its (almost) all female cast is completely captivating for its demented 108 minutes in duration; in addition, Mr. Aronofsky will leave your mind stained for the following 1008 minutes after you leave the theater.

Natalie Portman (even more skinny than normal) plays Nina Sayers, an apprehensive yet determined young woman who dreams of becoming a star in her own trade at the New York City ballet company where she has maintained an ardent dedication to for years. When company director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) announces he will be replacing prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder) with a new lead to portray both the White Swan and the Black swan in his production of Swan Lake this leads Nina into a twisted reality where she is unable to discern reality from fiction.

Adding to the confusion is Nina's overbearing mother (Barbara Hershey), fellow company dancer Lily (Mila Kunis), and Nina's doppelgänger (in the truest sense of the word) who all appear to be in Nina's corner just long enough to rattle her into hysteria. Black Swan is extraordinarily similar to 2008's The Wrestler and in a August 2010 interview with MTV Mr. Aronofsky explains "at one point, way before I made The Wrestler, I was actually developing a project that was about a love affair between a ballet dancer and a wrestler, and then it kind of split off into two movies." He now considers The Wrestler a companion piece to Black Swan.

Clint Mansell wrote the frightening score to Black Swan based on Tchaikovsky's original Swan Lake. The score to this movie is a undoubtedly what makes this movie so masterful, adding to to the intense drama significantly. It is no doubt that Mansell's score works so well with Aronofsky's plot as this is the fifth time the duo has worked together.

Ultimately this movie is not the most original or unpredictable movie in recent memory; however, Arinofsky's ability to invoke the emotions of his actors and audiences is brilliant and his film will certainly be on many top 10 lists this year.

9.5/10 (will be at the top of the list come Oscar time)

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