Black Swan: A disturbing masterpiece

Ballet dancer Nina lands the role of the lifetime when she is cast as the Swan Queen in Swan Lake. But she soon starts to believe her dreams of stardom will be crushed by her rival Lilly and, as opening night approaches and the pressure builds, her obsesion with being the "perfect" Swan Queen drives her into paranoia and delusion.

The first thing one remembers after turning off Black Swan is the career defining performance given by Natalie Portman. As Nina, she was able to grow character-wise, from the timid and scared girl in the beginning of the film who could only hope to land the part of the Swan Queen to the mature and confident woman who was able to give the performance of her lifetime in that role. Her actions and reactions between those two points were filled with so much emotion, including anger, confusion, despair and desire that it was nearly impossible to tear one's eyes from the screen for Ms. Portman so totally lost herself in the role that it was hard to imagine this was the same woman who played Queen/Senator Amidala in the recent Star Wars prequels. It was almost as if Ms. Portman felt as though her own real life career mirrored that of Nina's and, having grown tired of always playing the good girl, she was looking for a role that would not only break that typecasting mold, but bust it inot a million pieces. As with Nina's transformation this role seems to be Portman's transformative performance.

Beyond Portman's performance, Darren Aronofsky's direction merits attention for he was able to not only bring out stellar performances from his lead actress as well as the rest of the cast, but he also kept the audience on the edge of their seats by playing up the torment Nina was facing. Her decent into a psychological spiral preyed on the minds of the audience, causing them to question whether Nina was truly turning into the mythologial Black Swan or if she was simply loosing her mind. Aronofsky was able to further toy with the audience by including some of Nina's visions, which contained some of the more unnerving images seen on film since movies such as The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby.

A film about a mentally unhinged ballerina does not seem like something many people would be calmoring to watch, however the strong acting and storytelling of Black Swan made it a disturbingly, entertaining thriller that an audience could not help but be enthralled by.

Grade: A