Black Swan

Natalie Portman plays a ballet dancer whose dream role becomes a nightmare in this psychological thriller.

Nina (Natalie Portman) is a ballet dancer whose technique is perfect, but who is emotionally inhibited. When she gets the lead role in a new production of Swan lake!, the psychological pressure is too much for her and she begins to experience paranoid hallucinations. The closer Nina gets to her first night performance, the more terrifying her mental disintegration becomes.

Acting excellence: 

Black Swan has made Portman a favourite to win the Best Actress oscar and her preparation is impressive. She does much of the dancing herself and although she may not convince a real ballet dancer, she is graceful enough to impress most of us. She is also very good at portraying Nina's mental fragility. From the start you feel that she is not strong enough to take a starring role. The film's weak point is director Darren Aronofsky. A successful psychological thriller creates an atmosphere of tension that builds inexorably. Aronofsky fails to put us in nina's position and make us share her terror - we watch her disintegration with a sense of detachment when we should leave the cinema emotionally exhausted.