Holy Crap. That's all I could say at the end of this film as the credits rolled. Ho-ly crap. I just don't even know where to start with this review. This is definitely one of the best films I think I've ever seen. It was just so well rounded: great acting, great camera work, great costumes, great sound...the director
Darren Aronofsky really paid attention to every little detail, every little thing he needed ensuring that we as audience members had the exact experience he wanted us to have.
     Let's start with the acting. I'm going to get the whole Mila Kunis thing out of the way first. I didn't think she was all that special. I want so much to like her, but I just don't. Her voice really gets on my nerves and I just think of her as Meg Griffin. Barbara Hershey, whom I've loved loved loved ever since I saw Beaches (don't judge) did a great job also. Winona Ryder and the guy from the Ocean's movies (aka Vincent Cassel) were fine as well. Natalie Portman is currently the headliner when it comes to the Oscar race in her category. I mean, she was amazing. She did an excellent, excellent job.You could just tell she lived the part in order to portray a character on screen. Her body language was the main reason she was so successful. You could tell she felt like Nina felt. She didn't have a lot of lines, at most she would speak 5 or 6 words at a time. Her real performance came from the way she interpreted the action around her.
      I think Portman's success however, was aided immensely by the camera work. Aronofsky wanted us to feel extremely tense throughout the film and he achieved this through a variety of different means. For one, there's a lot of hand held camera work. Normally I get annoyed when directors use this method because it's just done to be "stylistic" or in my opinion just pretentious, but its employment in this movie was extremely effective and made it feel more gritty over all. There are a lot of close ups of the back of her head, we feel as though we are following her and peeking into her world for a great portion of the film. There were also an insane amount of close ups of every main character throughout the film. We definitely get to experience every little bit of fear in Portman's eyes.
     The sound also helped her out in this aspect. When she's alone or when she's dancing we can hear every little breath she takes. Usually there's a quiver hidden in there which illustrates her tenseness and/or fright. The score was also great. It was very effective when it came to making me feel something without realizing it. The sound effects were much louder than in other films, especially when coupled with a generally quiet film. There's not a whole lot of talking and instead we hear every movement. This in turn exemplifies the fact that the scene was other wise very quiet.
 
    The special effects and post production elements were great also. As the film goes on, Nina starts to become the black swan in her own personal life. Whenever she does anything "bad" her skin gets scaly in places. It comes and goes and is pretty stinking awesome...it's subtle but definitely very effective. The harsh lighting in the opening scene was really great too. I loved the use of mirrors which again was subtle but effective. We see how Nina and other characters view themselves through their reactions to their reflections. There was also a color theme of black and white throughout (mainly in Thomas' office) I thought it was a kind of cheesy homage to the white/black swan...but that's just my opinion.
     I suppose I need to mention the girl-on-girl scene since it's receiving so much attention. All I'll say is that I generally feel as though bedroom scenes like that are pretty unnecessary. I don't really enjoy them and I think it's a cheap ploy to market attention. I will say that I thought this scene was necessary in the plot. The "event" never happens and it's one of Nina's many hallucinations. I think it was important because it illustrated sick she was. Not because she imagined getting it on with another girl, but because of how vivid the hallucinations were. And that's all I'm going to say about that.
     This was definitely a great, well rounded film. Be prepared to feel uncomfortable. I've heard people saying that it was scary and that's not the case at all. Aronofsky just does a great job of making you experience situations as Nina does. She's fearful of imperfection in every sense of her being and we can really feel her tension and the pressure she puts on herself for 108 minutes.