Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) is a ballerina with a New York City ballet company. She lives in an apartment with her former-ballerina mother (Barbara Hershey) who smothers her and treats her like a child and clearly resents her success. Nina wears a lot of pink and has a room full of stuffed animals and a little ballerina-topped music box that Mommy plays for her before she goes to sleep each night.
As the film begins, aging prima ballerina Beth (Winona Ryder) has been forced into retirement and lecherous director Thomas Leroy casts Nina as the Swan Queen in the company's upcoming production of Swan Lake. The only problem is that a new ballerina named Lily has just joined the company and has clearly caught Leroy's eye. Actually that's not the only problem. An even bigger problem is that Nina is a paranoid schizophrenic who's convinced that Lily is out to get her.
It's not long before the audience learns that almost every creepy thing Nina sees or hears is really just her imagination. I fell for them the first few times but soon learned to limit my reaction to reserved skepticism. "Hmm, is that real?", I'd disinterestedly wonder. "Nope, not real."... "What about this? Is this real?" "Nope, that's not real either."
Many of Nina's hallucinations involve blood - her fingers are bleeding, her toes are bleeding. Although one time one of her toes really IS bleeding, just to keep us on our toes, I guess. (Ha, accidental ballet pun.) Once Nina imagines that her toes are webbed, which I knew wasn't real right away, clever sod that I am. Although I did believe some kid in 6th grade who told me that if you make a small incision on the inside of two adjacent toes and then tape the two together, they'll grow back webbed. And I'm still rather intrigued by the idea.
Often Nina's back is scratched and bleeding - for real - but this is from some sort of nervous tic where she mauls herself in her sleep. Luckily Mom is Johnny-on-the-spot with the nail scissors to perform a little protective grooming, but oops, she cuts one nail a little too short and now Nina's finger really IS bleeding. I know how she feels; I did the same thing to one of my dogs when he was a puppy and now I have to use a dremel.
One of the big themes of "Black Swan" is that Nina's virginal frigidity is preventing her from cutting loose and becoming a really great dancer. Leroy even gives her a homework assignment to go home and pleasure herself. In fact, all told, three people's hands make their way to Nina's crotch over the course of the film, Nina's included. This probably isn't one you want to go out to see with your parents after the big Christmas dinner.
One problem I had with "Black Swan" is that Nina is not the least bit likable. Nor is her mother. Nor is Leroy. Nor is Beth. The only person in the whole film who seems even sort of ok is Lily, and she's supposedly the evil one who's secretly trying to trip up Nina so she can take her place.
The other problem I had was that the fake thrills are just tiresome after a while. As, quite frankly, are the ballet scenes. Yes, I know it's a movie about a ballerina but it got to the point where I couldn't wait for Nina to stop dancing so she could go back to imagining that her eyes were bright red or her mirror images were acting independently. Basically the movie boils down to three things: dancing, hallucinations, and masturbation. All things considered, I'll take the psychosis.
I don't think I was the only one in the audience who was not particularly into the movie. Late in the film there was a smattering of laughter during an intense scene that was definitely not supposed to be funny and there'd been occasional giggling on and off throughout. I think this is the sort of movie that has just enough campiness to really hit it big on the midnight cult circuit.
Oftentimes I start out liking something, but it loses me somewhere along the way; "Black Swan" is one of those rare films that I disliked all the way through, from beginning to end. Natalie Portman is a good actress and Tchaikovsky is a great composer but after almost two hours of watching her descend into lunacy accompanied by his music - which I now have stuck in my head! - I'd had more than enough of both of them.
One weird parting observation: Darren Aronofsky directed both "Black Swan" and "The Wrestler" and both films have scenes in which the main character has small bits of metal (barbs for her, staples for him) pulled out of their back. Pretty sick coincidence, wouldn't you say?
One final word of warning: I recall hearing a story about my long deceased grandmother Gammy going to see "Last Tango in Paris" (rated "X") because she mistakenly thought it was a movie about dancing. Though "Black Swan" is only rated "R" and it does have quite a bit of dancing, it's definitely not for the Gammies of the world.