{"id":8181,"date":"2025-08-01T00:30:45","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T04:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=8181"},"modified":"2026-08-10T18:04:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T22:04:16","slug":"black-swan-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=8181","title":{"rendered":"Black Swan-2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

Black Swan-2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director Darren Aronofsky<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starring Natalie Portman<\/strong><\/p>\n

Top 250 Films #221<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Scott’s Review #735<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reviewed March 22, 2018<\/p>\n

Grade: A<\/strong><\/p>\n

Darren Aronofsky, the director famous for the psychological and bizarre, most notably 2000’s Requiem for a Dream, 20008’s The Wrestler, and 2017’s mother!, can easily add 2010’s Black Swan to this category.<\/p>\n

He weaves an unsettling tale involving the world of ballet centered around the Tchaikovsky work Swan Lake.<\/p>\n

The film is dark, eerie, perverse, and utterly mind-blowing in its creativity- in short, Black Swan is a masterpiece.<\/p>\n

The film reaped several Academy Award nominations, including a win for Natalie Portman as Best Actress.<\/p>\n

In the competitive New York City ballet company, art director, Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), is preparing to open the season with the compelling and complex, Swan Lake.<\/p>\n

Deemed “too old,” star ballerina Beth McIntyre (Winona Ryder) is forced into retirement, much to her chagrin, allowing others to audition for the coveted lead role.<\/p>\n

Aspiring talent, Nina Sayers (Portman), gives a flawless audition as the White Swan but lacks the depth to succeed as the Black Swan.<\/p>\n

Despite this point, Nina wins the role and slowly becomes psychotic as she begins to embody the Black Swan in her quest for perfection.<\/p>\n

Center stage, Portman embodies her character with mystique as we never know if she is living her dual role or if someone is messing with her.<\/p>\n

As strange events begin to occur, Nina is insecure and on edge throughout- as she desperately wants to give testament to White Swan\/Black Swan, she does not feel confident in the skin of Black Swan. She eventually teeters toward the edge of insanity.<\/p>\n

Deserving the Oscar statuette she won, Portman delivers the best role of her career.<\/p>\n

Black Swan would not have been the success that it was without the talents of the three most prominent supporting characters- Cassel, Mila Kunis (at the time unknown), as Lily\/Black Swan, and legendary talent Barbara Hershey as Nina’s supportive yet haggard mother, Erica.<\/p>\n

Just as Nina grows both suspicious of and distrustful of each of these characters’ motivations, so does the audience.<\/p>\n

Is Lily a trusted friend? What does Nina know of her? Is Cassel’s Thomas manipulating Nina for a great performance or does he have sexual designs on her?<\/p>\n

Is Erica a loyal confidante, a jealous bitch, vengeful about her stalled career?<\/p>\n

The final scene of the film is a masterpiece in itself and perfectly wraps up the film in a perplexing, grotesque style.<\/p>\n

As the big night finally arrives and doubt is cast on whether or not Nina will perform successfully, the entire scene is a riveting, climactic experience.<\/p>\n

One will never forget the final shot of Nina, gushing with blood, and a grimace caked in stage makeup, as she professes a perfect performance to her musical director and castmates.<\/p>\n

With this scene, we are left wondering whether she will ever recover from this performance.<\/p>\n

The fabulous musical score is haunting and effective, and each piece is perfectly placed within the appropriate scene.<\/p>\n

The heavy use of violins gives the soundtrack a frightening, almost horrific screeching quality, and the Chemical Brothers’ electronic songs, importantly used during Nina and Lily’s wild night out clubbing, are tremendously effective.<\/p>\n

The 1948 masterpiece The Red Shoes, directed by the controversial Michael Powell, must have influenced Aronofsky.<\/p>\n

Both contain similar subject matters of ballet and dancing on the edge of sanity; I can hardly think of two better films to serve as companion pieces, watched in tandem, than these two timeless greats.<\/p>\n

Darren Aronofsky, along with a perfectly cast company with stellar, bombastic actors, and a classical music score by the great Tchaikovsky, with electronic elements mixed in, delivers a piece that works in spades.<\/p>\n

2010’s chilling Black Swan is a modern-day classic that will be discussed as much as it is remembered as an incredibly important film.<\/p>\n

Oscar Nominations:<\/strong> 1 win-<\/strong>Best Picture, Best Director-Darren Aronofsky, Best Actress-Natalie Portman (won)<\/strong>, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing<\/p>\n

Independent Spirit Award Nominations: 4 wins-<\/strong>Best Feature (won)<\/strong>, Best Director-Darren Aronofsky (won)<\/strong>, Best Female Lead-Natalie Portman (won)<\/strong>, Best Cinematography (won)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Black Swan-2010 Director Darren Aronofsky Starring Natalie Portman Top 250 Films #221 Scott’s Review #735 Reviewed March 22, 2018 Grade: A Darren Aronofsky, the director famous for the psychological and bizarre, most notably 2000’s Requiem for a Dream, 20008’s The Wrestler, and 2017’s mother!, can easily add 2010’s Black Swan to this category. He weaves … Continue reading Black Swan-2010<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269,12000,362,13,11782,11769,204,7464],"tags":[7695,822,12413,2158,10730,3011,1860,6546,2353,1653],"class_list":["post-8181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2010-movie-reviews","category-ballet","category-favorite-film-of-the-year","category-horror-films","category-psychological-horror","category-psychological-thriller","category-thrillers","category-top-250-films","tag-221-favorite-film","tag-barbara-hershey","tag-benjamin-millepied","tag-darren-aronofsky","tag-mark-margolis","tag-mila-kunis","tag-natalie-portman","tag-sebastian-stan","tag-vincent-cassel","tag-winona-ryder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8181"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24066,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8181\/revisions\/24066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}