Movie Review: The Black Swan

'It's like, 127 hours, -only you're stuck in a ballet full of fragile egos and a single nail file.' - My twitter review of Black Swan in less than 140 characters.   I'm learning to keep my posts short and sweet this week.  Black Swan is an amazing psychological thriller set in New York, the central protagonist is a young ballet dancer, Nina, who finds herself both struggling and revelling in the lead role of Swan Lake.  Nina is an incredibly talented dancer who only sees her flawed self, she must fight the 'dark forces' of her own mentality to 'let herself go' fully, to unleash the passion and intensity within her own mind that embodies the true spirit of the Black Swan.

Natalie Portman plays Nina, and some of you probably know she won an Oscar for this role.  Enough said.   Aside from fighting her own insecurities, we watch Nina's daily battles with her relentless-over-bearing mother, brilliantly played by Barbara Hershey,  * whispers, Barbara gave me the shivers...just plain scary, like, worse than Joan-Crawford-scary. *  Beware though, this film is not everyone's cup of tea either, there is a lesbian-dream-fantasy-sequence, an underlying theme of self-harm, hence the nail file reference above...and of course the voyeuristic parent factor.  Vincent Cassel is superb as the all consuming creative director for the ballet, ahem, I have to mention that I first fell in love with Monsieur Cassel in 'Brotherhood of the Wolves...which was quite wonderful too!  Winona Ryder gives a class performance as the out-going-over-the-hill-ballerina;  Milla Unis is perfect as the ambitious sexy understudy.

If you enjoy a good thriller where you are never too sure which way is up or down, and who is actually telling the truth, -then you may just like Black Swan.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Would I watch it again?  Yes, in fact, even before the credits rolled, I thought - I need to re-watch that, like, now?

Photocredits via weheartit


A/N:  I hope you all have had a lovely week!  It's been good for me on the editing front, and I hope your writing projects are coming along swimmingly.  Plans for the weekend?  Relaxing, an art gallery or two, shopping, lunching, and catching up with old friends.   How about you?