I sent this message to Marda but hope it will work here as well.

As awesome as Natalie Portman is in this film, the movie itself made me squirm in my seat. It's very clever in terms of the doppelganger motif: white swan/black swan--Nina as "little girl" adult with a room that seems to have a bucket of pink paint poured over it (even her underwear, coat, workout clothes are pink)/the one wants to get out of this smothering environment; a mother who loves/hates her (she gave up her own dancing career when she became pregnant) and never lets Nina forget it but won't let her grow up either sexually or psychically; the other dancer, Lily, who is both her friend and her antagonist/ another ballerina now discarded by the dance director who represents what Nina may become; flowers alive/flowers dead; a sugary pink cake/a grapefruit. There are literally two of everything, always in binary opposition. And one cannot count the mirrors in the film. These mirrors trace Portman's unraveling as she moves from innocence to knowledge. She seems to be unable not to see herself everywhere and the mirrors gradually take on a life of their own as she sees what she is becoming and is tortured by it..

I also think it's clever in terms of tracing the twists of the dancer's mind. The whole set seems to be a giant labyrinth from the apartment where she lives with her mother to the streets and tunnels of New York to the studio itself. And doors! Opening and closing, locked and unlocked, avenues of escape or imprisonment, you get the picture. All well done.

I didn't know that Portman really is a dancer and worked for a year to get into shape and hone her dancing skills for this film. She is a beautiful woman and moves through the film with lithe grace and the dance scenes are better than I would have thought. Also, Vincent Cassel as the dance director and Mila Kunis as Lily are perfect foils for Nina. And poor Wynona Ryder as the cast-aside ballerina in a role that seems almost cruelly designed to point toward her kleptomania and washed-up career. There's so much good here yet I just didn't like the film. Go figure.

I think this film is too creepy even for me, who can watch just about anything. The bulimia, smothering "mommy dearest," sexual repression (she never has sex beyond masturbation)--I dunno, I felt doppelganged myself in this film. Loved the Portman performance, disliked the film. I thought that 127 Hours was certainly gory with the Franco character cutting off his arm and realizing that he needs other people in his life was hard to watch but I loved that film. In fact, I am often surprised when I see a film I don't know if I'll like and then it turns out to be terrific. This one, not so much.

I've heard from two friends, one of whom loved it, the other hated it. The doubleness persists.

Pidge