Black Swan

Indie, Dark
4.5 stars
Very dark and creepy – and who cuts their nails with scissors?!? Natalie Portman stars as a mentally unbalanced ballerina who has scary hallucinations so you don’t know what’s real and what isn’t, mostly. Barbara Hershey is perfectly creepy with her unnatural nurturing of Portman and effectively gave me the heebie-jeebies every time she was on the screen. Mila Kunis was great at easing the almost constant tension while Portman saw her as competition for her role in Swan Lake. Vincent Cassel and Winona Ryder also deliver memorable performances. Unfortunately, this was filmed partly with a shaky hand-held camera and the picture is irritatingly fuzzy throughout. Excellent award-worthy performances by all, though really, really creepy.