Rated R: Evil twins and duplicitous doppelgangers are nothing new in film, nor are obsessed artists, overbearing mothers, or surreal descents into madness. But nowhere are they as excessive, overwrought, and beautiful as in Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan.” It’s a passionate, forceful film, aggressive in its pursuit of tension, release, and perfection. It might be Aronofsky’s best production, and it’s certainlyNatalie Portman’s strongest performance.    
Portman stars as Nina Sayers, a driven ballet dancer who’s hoping for a role in a production of “Swan Lake.” She dreams—literally—of dancing the part of Odette, the White Swan, but Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), the dance company’s director, is reluctant to cast her. While Nina is technically proficient and embodies the purity of Odette, she lacks the passion, confidence, and sexuality of Odile, the Black Swan, who is more aptly personified by fellow dancer Lily (Mila Kunis).
Nina lands the part but finds trouble all around her. Her body and mind betray her—a strange rash appears on her shoulder, her skin peels off in strips, and everywhere she goes, she sees dark reflections of herself.    
Yes, “Black Swan” is a horror film, and there are echoes here of 1970s giallos, as well as the early films of Roman Polanski and David Cronenberg. This is a film of doubles and dual (and dueling) identities. Kunis proves to be a great foil for Portman; her character is bold and strong and seductive and, as such, becomes both Nina’s chief rival and a template for what she could become.
But Nina is also doubled by her mother (Barbara Hershey), a washed-up dancer who’s pinned all her hopes on Nina. It’s an unbearably creepy, suffocating mother-daughter relationship, and whenever Aronofsky shows the closing door of the small apartment they share, it’s as if an awful dungeon is being locked tight.
And, of course, there’s Nina herself: virginal, repressed, and so dedicated to dance that her singular focus is more religious than artistic. Her own Black Swan lurks deep inside, and watching Portman as she avoids, confronts, struggles with, and finally embraces her desires and lack of perfection is breathtaking. It’s an over-the-top performance, but Portman owns it, and the excesses of “Black Swan” wouldn’t succeed without her. 
Nearly eclipsing the psychological horror of “Black Swan” is the physical horror of a dancer’s life. Nina’s toenails audibly shatter, her joints pop, and cartilage crackles. The film is filled with the sounds of the human body pushed beyond its limits and reason in the pursuit of some indefinable greatness. The dancing that results is beautiful, but the journey there is not for the squeamish.
Here, “Black Swan” acts as a companion to Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” and his first film, “Pi.” For the characters in Aronofsky’s films, the secret to achievement is locked not so much in the mind as in the limits of the body. “Black Swan” may be the director’s best statement. As light and dark clash and coalesce, reality blurs, and Nina’s various doubles converge for a final act that’s impossibly tense and wonderfully cathartic. It’s Grand Guignol-type stuff, completely extreme and wildly surreal. It’s not perfect, but it’s engrossing and transcendent, just the sort of art Aronofsky and his characters are forever chasing.

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