Review! Black Swan

After being cast as the lead in Swan Lake, the ballerina Nina experiences psychological turmoil as she strives for perfection. She faces the pressure from her company director to connect more passionately to her art, and Lily a fellow dancer who is her greatest competition.


What We Thought:

Jess:It really lived up to my expectations in every way. Natalie Portman was brilliant in what has to be her strongest performance. Mila Kunis was really great and showed that she deserves more and better roles. The story line was complex but kept it clean and simple in the best ways. One of the best portrayals of a psychological unraveling I’ve seen. The dancing was really impressive from two actresses who had only been training for a few months. It shook me and made me say what the fuck and made me cringe and made me laugh and made me get a little hot about girls and was just a really fantastic film. Of all of the movies I saw this year, this one struck me the most emotionally and soared to the top of my favorite movies of 2010.

Lindsay: Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan is the most intense, dark and sexy movie of 2010. Aronofsky’s vision for Black Swan was extremely well developed and adapted to the screen. The use of color, music, and imagery give this film the perfect feel to keep you in suspense and squirming in your seat. Apart from everything Aronofsky brought to this work of art, the real shining star here is Natalie Portman as the perfection seeking ballerina Nina Sears. Arguably Portman’s best performance of her career, she commands the audience’s attention and made me forget that this wasn’t a real person. Black Swan parallels the struggle of Natalie’s character with the ballet she is to performing in, while never letting the audience understand too much of exactly what we are witnessing. What is real?, what is fiction? and what ultimately does the story want to tell us? I think Black Swan is a work of art. The film provides us with some of Darren Aronofsky’s best work and a truly outstanding performance from Natalie Portman (She deserves the Oscar this year, for certain.)Rob: Black swan is a very engrossing movie. It requires that you put a lot into it, but the movie gives it back to you in spades. Watching Natalie Portman’s character descend into a mind state that’s very dark makes the watcher feel similar. The movie does a good job of making you feel the insanity of the character.

Everything else about the movie is also done well. Mila Kunis also has a stand out performance that makes me believe she was probably too good for That 70’s Show. The cinematography and score was powerful and the story is told beautifully.

Rating Scores: