Lets be honest, in 5 years time people are not going to be looking back saying " wow, remember that movie Black swan? It was amazing!!!" Nope, Once it has finished surfing its current 'hype' wave, it will sit among the 'pretty good' movies of 2010! Ill give credit where its due, Natalie Portman gives so much of herself that you wonder what depths she went too to portray this tortured soul...She is absolutely spellbinding. The Director 'Darren Aronofsky' however holds the reigns as best he can, but with such a bleak pallet and morbid tone, his raw technique, digs deeper than it needs and seems lost in its own pretensions. The Final 20 minutes however are breathtaking, with all the forgotten loose ends brought together in a truly operatic finale. To be fair maybe it needs another viewing to fully appreciate its complexities, but the thing is, " I don't want to watch it again"!!… Expand

"Black Swan" is a fearless movie that unveils the psychological horror of perfectionism and observes the deepest, darkest personalities of mankind. All of this is created and formed with Keen, sensitive direction and a frightfully perfect performance from Natalie Portman (as expected, she won a Oscar for her performance). Ultimately, this masterpiece is a beautiful dark twisted movie you must, and will watch.… Expand

There are very disturbing sequences throughout this film of putrefying flesh and violated bodies, and these images do not make sense, either psychologically or artistically. They are simply the usual manipulations of the audience employed by almost all films of the horror genre. Such images play upon the morbid fascination that one feels when considering the loss of something that one considers to be essential to one's being, like a leg, or one's flesh, or one's face, or one's eyes. Not even one of the characters is truly nurturing of either art or of the human beings who make it. Even the mother of the lead character is revealed to be a falsely nurturing figure. If that were true in real life, then there would be no art at all. The movie left me with a feeling of dread that took several hours to overcome.… Expand

Portman sports a worried grimace through the entire movie, making the ending more of a relief than a climax. Should have been called The Emperor's New Tutu.

As I was watching "Black Swan," I started counting the times the camera lingered on Natalie Portman staring pointlessly at herself in a mirror and lost count at eight billion. Guess that means I'm not one of the many crying "bravo" for this film. I love Vincent Cassel, but here he's wasted as one more catalyst for the flowering of Natalie Portman's neurosis into capital-A Art. It's interesting to me that Winona Ryder showed up as the has-been dancer because Portman seemed to base her character on the timid mental patient Ryder played in "Girl, Interrupted" (watchable only for Angelina Jolie's much more dynamic sociopath). The difference here is that we experience manifestations of Portman's disintigration and are clearly supposed to wonder whether she is, in fact, being sabotaged. That would be the thriller part. But it's evident from the first 10 minutes of the movie that this chick is way too screwed up for anyone to bother sabotaging; all an intelligent rival would have to do is stand around, smoke a cigarette or two, and wait for her to self-destruct. So "thrills," for me, along with surprises, were in pretty short supply. I was mildly interested in how she'd finally sex up her Black Swan (hint: no sex involved) but rolled my eyes when it finally happened. I'm happy for all the people who swooned with delight at this film, but I was definitely not one of them. Plusses: some nice dancing. Vincent Cassel putting the mack on Portman then walking off in disgust. Barbara Hershey's scary facelifts finally used to advantage.… Expand

Considering all the laudatory reviews and the number of 10 ratings one might assume a masterpiece had birthed. Alas not for this viewer. Natalie did a fine job, no problem there, but talk about an overwrought Polanski rip-off. If this is masterful film making today, I'm depressed. It had the makings of an interesting, dramatic thriller. But where was the subtlety, the craft of a work that gradually seduces you. Not here. I'm only seen a couple major reviewers that have really questioned the artfulness of this project. I felt like I had been hammered by it. It was so over the top.… Expand

This movie is a horror flick and is not worth the money to see it. The story and script are terrible. Perhaps the acting is good, but it is wasted on this terrible horrific film. Save your time and money and skip this one.

Coming from a successful award circuit with The Wrestler - which consequently restarted Mickey Rourke's acting career - director Darren Aronofsky returns with the ballet-based psychological thriller Black Swan. Following in the footsteps of Aronofsky's previous films (Pi, Requiem For A Dream), Black Swan is a dark psychological nightmare with disturbing cinematography that freely crawls underneath the skin of its audience. In his newest venture, it seems as if Aronofsky took stylistic notes from Jean-Luc Godard and at the same time attempted to make a vague statement. Essentially, Black Swan is a film that has too much style rather than its implied substance. Like The Wrestler, Black Swan converges most of its attention onto a single character. Natalie Portman strays from her archetypal roles and impeccably plays the innocent character of Nina; an aspiring ballerina who receives the star role of the "Swan Queen" in an upcoming rendition of Swan Lake. The production of Swan Lake requires the queen to play the innocent White Swan and the provocative Black Swan. Primarily, the film focuses on Portman's conservative character, who must under pressure, contrastingly channel her inner malevolence to "perfectly" perform her role. Portman IS the highlight of this film. Like with Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, Portman defines herself as an actress in this film. Although it takes an excessive amount of time to buildup to Nina's breakdown, the final half of Portman's performance is flawless. The spectrum of emotion and insanity she displays is so real, she has truly locked the "best actress" category for the upcoming award season.

While Portman's performance is flawless, this brings to question the real point of the film. Aronofsky places symbolism in the film that is vague and at the same time obvious. With different scenes of shocking imagery such as the sensual scene between Kunis and Portman, it is really difficult to grasp why the film possesses such figurative scenes. There are various points of blatant symbolism, giving the impression that the film attempts to be deep. An exemplification of this complaint is the non-stop sensuality seen in the film. I acknowledge that it is to bring out Portman's immorality and show the effects of a disturbed artist, but there is just so much that it overshadows the brilliance of the film. There are too many figurative aspects in Black Swan. That is where the film loses substance, it tries to be cerebrally abstract even when it is not. The film really should have focused on Portman's mental breakdown rather than employing figurative imagery. Even though the film's "figurative" impression refrains itself from being a masterpiece, Black Swan is one of the best films that 2010 offers. Set aside the excessive focus on deepness, Aronofsky's film is visually gorgeous and its intensity immense. The visual imagery is the disturbing essence that you expect from the director. It digs into your emotions, and it stays there throughout the movie. Black Swan is gritty and raw, and the usage of handheld filming is subtle yet effective (unlike movies like **** which uses it in an irrelevant fashion).

Overall, Black Swan is an excellent film that is not quite the "masterpiece" that many are saying it is. With that being said, it is still a quality film where its pros outshine its cons. Its visual brilliance and its suspenseful emotion makes up for the film's flaws. Black Swan will disturb and haunt its audience to the fullest. Hopefully audiences will just ignore the film's senseless statement. Grade: B+… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Spoilers!!! Not that much of the plot revealed below would be surprising after watching the first 10 minutes of the film. 1. The premise is flawed. Why would they select such a spiritless, vapid, flat emotional wreck to carry Swan Lake.


2. Natalie Portman's performance is spiritless, vapid and flat for 90% of the movie and laughably over the top for the remainder. Though the laugh factor is not entirely her fault, because....


3. The forced combination of surrealism and melodrama provided by the script and Aronofsky's direction would be hilarious if it wasn't so embarrassing.

4. At least Showgirls had nudity and memorable one-liners.

5. I'm sure Aronofsky and whoever wrote this has seen The Piano Teacher and that pisses me off, because both movies include:

a. A sexually and emotionally constricted woman that trains vigorously in a performance art

b. a disturbingly intimate relationship with a mother who is overbearing

c. a closing shot of the lead having stabbed themselves at one of their performances

6. Even the frequent masturbation scenes and casual lesbianism that was included to keep straight guys like my brother interested in the movie was unsuccessful. According to my brother, these ladies are thin and gross.

7. The frequent shifts in what is real and what is a hallucination is tiring and I eventually lost interested in telling the two apart, thus making me indifferent to what was I assume meant to be a tragic ending.

8. Aronofsky put me in the uncomfortable position of feeling bad for laughing when other people might not have realized how stupid this movie is.

9. This movie sucked.

10. My brother may never trust me to choose a movie ever again. Here is my brother's two word review of the movie: **** Swan.



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Very Disappointed in this movie. Yes the dancing and the Photography is good, but it takes a lot more then that to make an interesting movie. My group found the movie tiring and the ending predictable. The idea that anyone would cast such a fragile, timid ballerina in the lead of a major production of Swan Lake in one of the world's premiere ballet companies is laughable. Dancing required hard work and discipline. As the movie states, it is a very competitive art. I do not think this character, who still sleeps in a room that was designed for a three year old would have ever made it past her first three years of dance, much less make it to stardom. She would have "cracked up" years and years before. I have read the other reviews and "know where they were going"...I just don't think they ever got there.… Expand

I heard great reviews about this movie so I expected to see a great movie about the ballet Swan Lake. The movie started with camera work I would have expected from an amateurish 8th grader holding the camera for the first time. It was shaky, forcefully zoomed in, and did not capture the mood of an ballet. After the terrible camera work hit me I was forced into the overworked tense scene where everything they tried to place in a scene that would scare her just seemed funny. The dream sequences which were not dream sequences left me asking who asking who came up with this script and you need to pick a genre and stick to it. Finally while things like costumes and acting were amazing, the directing was terrible and ruined what could have been a great movie.

I go to art school and saw it with my art school friends, unless you are a pretentious art school kid, skip this movie. As a man, even the lesbian scene was just sad and I kind of laughed through most of it due to just how unrealistic this movie is. I can't really find a group of people to recommend this to. I know girls who have done Ballet and yes they are stressed but do not have mental issues like she does. Just generally a bad movie...… Expand

Unbelievably trashy. A cross between Polanski's Repulsion, Carrie and everything done by Cronenberg. But unfortunately done by all the above much better. A boring, repulsive, claustrophobic experience with a courageous, yet artificial performance by Portman. I never believed for a minute that she was the obsessed, naive and sheltered character she was playing. And this whole nonsense that all she needed was a good orgasm to perform the Black Swan with passion was too much. And was the lesbian sex scene really necessary?… Expand

Lame and boring. How can I use 150 characters to say this movie was lame and boring? Until the last 20 minutes, I was really wanting to just leave before I fell asleep. And I really went in expecting to be impressed. Maybe it's aimed at the artsy, NYC theater crowds. But here in Texas it just falls flat. And this was from the general consensus of the people we talked when leaving the theater. Lame and Boring. Unless you live in NYC and have a thing for Ballet, skip this one… Expand

I found this movie to be deceptively shallow--entertaining to watch but ultimately flimsy. It is a psychological thriller and a conventional one at that, often dependent on predictable horror movie cliches. It is generally well paced and effectively creates a mood of foreboding, but the payoff, when it comes, is not terribly interesting and is no surprise at all. It confirms what you'd already anticipated and resolves whatever mild curiosity you might have had. The acting is good. Mila Kunis is terrific. The relationship between Natalie Portman's character and her domineering, self-loathing mother is completely credible, and Portman is effective in playing an obsessive, egocentric, immature artist. Unfortunately for her, that sort of emotional unintelligence does not make for an absorbing character--the interplay between reality and her own disturbed psyche is just not that interesting.

Considering all the hype and critical acclaim, I'm tempted to give this movie a score in the basement, but it's not a _bad_ movie. It's an entertaining way to spend an hour and a half, but nothing more than that.… Expand

Ridiculous pap geared to 13 yr olds. The whole deal was idiotic, all geared to how they could get the next gruesome special effect or soft-porn scene into the flick.

Give Nat Portman credit, she never seemed to act like she knew she was in a ridiculous movie, give her an academy nod for that.

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. A beautiful, seriously flawed, at times laughable, melodrama. The only suspense, soon disposed of, is whether we are witnessing the descent into madness or a ghost story. Descent into madness it is! Sit back and watch her unravel, or rather metamorphize. Vincent Cassell is out of his depth in a role that requires more than his usual fetid pathological intensity. Natalie is sweet but her ultimate transformation seems like more than she can, or is allowed to, emote. The ultimate problem lies in the often weak direction which seems engrossed in pulp fiction or comic strip camp instead of the exploration of driven ambition.… Expand

If 'Black Swan' was directed by David Fincher, it would be called 'Ballet Club,' and it would be a thematic sequel to 'Fight Club.' However, it wasn't directed by Fincher, but instead by Darren Aronofsky, which explains why it is probably the most well-directed movie of the year. I can't say that it is the best film of the year, which I believe is 'The Social Network' because it is both good and culturally relevant, but Aronofsky's skill is at its peak in 'Black Swan,' and it sure is something to marvel. I believe Aronofsky exquisitely directed the most perfectly structured and beautifully told story of any film I have seen this year. I still give major props to Fincher, as well as David O Russell ('The Fighter') and Christopher Nolan ('Inception'). Natalie Portman steals the screen for the majority of the film, brilliantly portraying the fragile ballerina Nina Sayers. After winging the role of the Swan Queen in the upcoming show of the popular Swan Lake dance, Nina struggles to move out of the shadow of her nutty, sheltering mother, while rejecting the sexual advances and dark nature of her extremely professional instructor, all the while preparing for a performance she wants to make perfect. Seeing 'Tron Legacy' and 'The Fighter' before this (I saw all three in one day) helped keep me up with this whole perfection fiasco, which is the entire theme of 'Black Swan.' The most brilliant thing about 'Black Swan' is that it actually adapts the story of 'Swan Lake' into Nina's story that we see in the film. Since I'm a guy, I know very little about 'Swan Lake,' but Aronofsky obviously wasn't targeting all females with this film, so he throws in a summary about halfway in. It is then that you should be able to pick up that everything Nina is going through is a literal translation of the 'Swan Lake' story. This is even easier to notice with the orchestra music that plays throughout the movie during scenes that would not normally have music playing in the background. Most guys won't find this information fascinating at all, but hey, we get to see two hot chicks making out. Or do we? Aronofsky does a lot more with this film than you'll probably be able to notice after seeing it once. This includes having Natalie Portman always wearing white while Mila Kunis always wears black, to represent Portman as the Swan and Kunis as the dark side, although this symbolism is all in Nina's head. Her reluctance to push everyone else out of her life shows as we continually see her trying to keep her mother out of her room, as well as her attempts to impress her instructor while failing to understand what he wants out of her. Her struggle to impress two perfectionists drives her to the point of insanity, and the balance of the two characters on Nina's shoulders represents the struggle of the "swan" with it's dark side, which we see leads to a surprisingly extravagant conclusion. I would say that Aronofsky was very Fincher-esque with the psychological mindf**k, Kubrickian with the perfectionist structure of the film (especially with the bombastically loud orchestral soundtrack), or even Tarantinoish with the way he incorporated symbolism every which way (as 'Inglourious Basterds' did), but if you have seen any of this director's past films, you will understand that this is all Aronofsky. While it is indeed perfect, and very symbolic, it is also very dark and never afraid to push the limits, just as his other films are. 'Black Swan' as a whole represents the beauty of Aronofsky's dark natured filmography, although some will not like it since the limits the film pursues to push are not the type fans of Disney's 'Ice Princess' would've expected. It actually thrilled me to see many of the young girls in the theater covering their eyes throughout the film, just so I could assure myself that I wasn't watching some Hannah Montana manure.… Expand

This is the best movie to come out in the past twenty years. Absolutely gorgeous, and haunting at the same time. It will stay on your mind for days after seeing it. Every Academy Award should go to Black Swan, Natalie Portman, and Darren Aronofsky. My new favorite movie.

Darren Aranofskyâ

I did not enjoy watching this movie and I would not see it again. I had two serious issues with it: (1) the premise that an emotional lightweight could get the lead role of Swan Lake in one of the world's premiere ballet companies and (2) the overuse of stock surprise elements -- over and over and over again to the point of distraction (and exhaustion). The basic story line is good and interesting, and some performances were very, very strong (especially Mila Kunis'). That said, the overall execution was very disappointing.… Expand

Make note: of the two idiots who gave this bad reviews, one did so to draw attention to a technical problem with the metacritic site and the other wrote his based on the trailer, which made him "angry" even though he doesn't seem to know what the movie is actually about. Frustrating. Oh, and by the way, the movie is one of the best to come out this year.

This movie's plot was thin and played out in a shocking and gruesome way. Come on folks, give the viewer a little more credit for taste and intelligence.

get to work and stop dancing like a baby! dumb ****
get to work and stop dancing like a baby! dumb ****
get to work and stop dancing like a baby! dumb ****

This is one of the worst movies made in the past 10 years. After all the buzz, my wife and I had hyped up hopes that were dashed halfway through this wannabe psycho-thriller. It's one of those movies in which, at the end, when you expect to have this "aha" moment that gives some measure of clarity or answers ... you see the beginning of the film credits. We expected a sophisticated, sexy thriller ... we got a goofy movie with a few titillating scenes with Portman squirming on a bed.… Expand

Perfection--a major theme of the film and ultimately what it achieves. Portman is stunning. Aronofsky's direction is masterful. The cinematography and sound are interesting and integral to the story. This is simply a masterpiece in the psychological horror oeuvre.

Kenneth Turan of the LA Times is absolutely clueless. This film was brilliant. The fact that you are unable to distinguish reality from psychosis is what is so compelling about the piece. Natalie Portman deserves an Oscar for her amazing performance.

Black Swan is one of those all too rare films these days where you are never quite sure where it is going. Sometimes that can be upsetting and disorienting--but not so with this film. Aronofsky's direction kept me constantly on edge and even provided some genuine thriller moments where more than one audience member shrieked out loud. It is a darkly hued tale expertly told and performed by Natalie Portman in what is surely one of her most powerful roles to date. Indeed this story is at times disturbing and provocative, but that's the way good art should be--even in the seemingly simple lithe world of ballet dancing.… Expand

The first thing I did after seeing The Black Swan, was buy new socks. Comfort is not in the emotional vocabulary of this film. Think Requiem for a Dream without the laughs or the moral tale. Black Swan is a fable of self destruction.