The cast includes the following actors:
Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers
Mila Kunis as Odile, Lily
Vincent Cassel as Thomas Leroy
Winona Ryder as Beth Macintyre
Barbara Hershey as Erica Sayers
Benjamin Milliepied as David
Plot
summary:
The opening
sequence of the movie shows the lifestyle of a girl named Nina who lives in New
York City with her mother. Nina is a ballet dancer who dances in New York City
Ballet Company. She has a dream of becoming a lead dancer. Actually her mother, too happened to be a dancer.
On her way to work on a train, she finds a girl looking so similar to her. But she can’t look at her clearly due to the crowd and obstructions there. When Nina gets to her dance group, she gets to know that the lead dancer of her group is going to be changed because people are getting bored looking at the same face. Their group leader, Thomas informs everyone that he will be choosing the lead dancer, also known as ‘Swan Queen’ soon by taking auditions. Nina sees how the former Swan Queen was breaking everything up in her room(the room where Swan Queen gets ready) after she got to know that she was no longer the lead dancer, Nina goes to the damaged room and remembers how she always wanted to be in that room. Now that she wants to be the lead dancer, she shows up for the auditions. Her performance of a white swan impresses Thomas so very much. Now he asks Nina to dance as a black swan, but she gets distracted and loses her balance. This makes Nina so very sad. When she comes out, she gets to see a lady so very similar to Nina. The only difference was that the lady was in all black and wore confidence while Nina was in all white.
Now Nina comes back home and starts crying hugging her mother because she couldn’t give her best today. She again performs the same dance to see where she went wrong in the audition. But this time due to so much consciousness she loses her balance and hurts herself. Her toenail gets broken And her mom tells her that she can’t dance for a few days. But Nina says that she won’t step back but rather dance again tomorrow for the audition. The next day, Nina goes to Thomas and tells him that she wants to do the Black Swan dance once again as she has known where she went wrong. But Thomas says that Swan Queen has already been selected and her name is Veronica and it’s too late. Now Nina being very upset tries to leave Thomas’s cabin but he stops her and tells her that she performs the dance of the white swan so very well but not of the black swan and it is because perfection in the black swan dance doesn’t come from practice but rather she should make herself free, her soul free from all the bonding and should feel black swan. Nina assures him that she will try her best. At the next moment, Thomas tries to come near to Nina but she pushes him back and leaves his cabin. Thomas, instead of being angry becomes happy because it was his test. For being a black swan, a dancer should have a lot of anger and rage in their eyes and he could see that in her eyes through the test. Hence, Nina passes the final test.
The following day, when Nina comes to the dance company, she sees that Swan Queen is none other than herself. She becomes happy and calls her mother to tell her the happy news. Her mother couldn’t fulfill her own’s dream of being a swan queen due to pregnancy and hence she wanted her daughter to live her dream and hence was very happy too. After that, she is taken to a party where she is introduced as Swan Queen and everyone delivers good wishes and applause for her. At the party, Nina realizes that her skin is coming off her finger and is bleeding too. So she goes to the washroom to remove her skin. At that time, Nina realizes that something unusual is happening to her. When she comes out of the washroom, she sees the lady who was the swan queen before. The lady insults Nina and says that she has no right to work in that role. Also, she adds that she is a weak girl and that to perform black swan, one should have a very bold personality. She even blames Nina that she must have compromised with Thomas to get the role. Thomas comes to the scene and takes Nina out from there. He even adds that Nina should give no care to such people and always be strong and confident.
The next day during practice, she gets to know that the former swan queen met an accident and hence the practice is canceled. Nina goes to the hospital with Thomas and she tells him that the former swan queen is going through all this because of her. Thomas tries to convince Nina that she is not right but rather the lady herself got to the accident to give herself a punishment. He also adds that she had been a swan queen for this long just because of her boldness and bravery. Now Nina goes to meet the lady and finds her in a critical situation. That day for the first time, Nina locks her room and sleeps. The next day she goes to practice and she does it so well. When everyone leaves, Thomas asks her to dance with her and tries touching her inappropriately. She gets afraid of the situation. Thomas tells Nina that she still has fear in her and until she has this fear inside her she can never dance as a black swan. Nina becomes sad and starts crying, her co-dancer Lily sees that and tells Nina to be confident that she is a very good dancer and would certainly perform the best. The next day, Nina again starts practicing the dance and continuously dances. But Thomas doesn’t even ask her to stop. This makes her insane and shouts at Thomas about why he is doing so. Thomas replies that since Nina was crying yesterday, she is not strong yet and definitely needs to be stronger. Nina realizes that Lily must have told everything to him and goes to her to ask why she did so. She even asks Lily to be out of her matters from now on. Lily asks for pardon and offers to go out with her. Nina grants her pardon and goes to a club with her. Nina gets heavily drunk. Lily adds something to Nina’s drink which makes her dance too much. When she gets to her conscience, she goes to her home and Lily too goes there with her. These two get intimate that night. But the other morning when Nina wakes up, she realizes that it has already become too late and her door is locked from inside and Lily is not there too. She opens the door and goes outside and finds her mom so upset.
When she reaches the studio, she finds that Lily has already reached there. She understands that Lily left her sleeping to show everyone her dance. She feels sorry for being late and even asks Thomas pardon and he tells Nina to practice. This day Nina practices with full aggression. Afterward, she goes to Lily and confronts her that she knows Lily added something to her drink and this made her sleep for that long. But Lily becomes shocked and tells Nina that although they had gone out Lily had gone to her home after the party. Nina feels that Lily is doing all this to take her place. When practicing, Nina realizes that Lily and Thomas are making eye contact. This makes Nina worried and forces her to think if she is going to get replaced. Hence Nina practices with full effort during final practice and performs so well that everyone appreciates her.
Now Nina is taken to the tailor to take the measurement for the dress of the swan queen. Then she sees Lily too and becomes surprised. Lily explains that she, too had come there to make the dress of the swan queen as an alternative to Nina and that if anything happens to Nina that day, she would perform instead. This makes Nina worried and tells Thomas that Lily always wanted to take the place of Nina and hence asks him to remove her from the alternative role. But Thomas convinces Nina that every lady would want to be the swan queen but she should not let anyone snatch it from her with all her hard work and bravery. This motivates Nina and she keeps practicing all alone.
At night when she is practicing alone, she catches Thomas and Lily getting intimate. This upsets Nina and makes her feel that she is betrayed. So she goes to the hospital to tell the former swan queen everything. But that lady starts hurting herself when she sees Nina. So Nina leaves the place and even starts visualizing horrible scenes. Then Nina gets to her home and gets unconscious. When she becomes conscious she remembers that today is the swan performance day. Her mom stops her from going but Nina anyhow comes out.
At the dance company, Nina sees Thomas preparing Lily in a swan queen dress. But Nina dresses herself in a swan queen dress and Thomas doesn’t even stop her from doing so because he sees the aggression in Nina’s face that is required to dance as a black swan. Nina performs white swan dance so well but she is insecure too if Lily gets to perform black swan. This breaks her concentration and she falls down but she gets up and dances again. She tells Thomas that she fell because of someone else. Nina goes to her changing room but sees that Lily is getting ready in a black swan dress. Nina and Lily first get into a verbal fight and later on, they start attacking each other and Nina hurts Lily with a broken piece of mirror and Lily dies. Nina hides the dead body in the bathroom. Her eyes start turning into a black swan and it is seen that there is no fear in her eyes. Nina with her full fury and confidence performs the black swan dance. Everyone appreciates Nina and Thomas becomes happy too. Then Nina comes to her green room and finds blood flowing from the bathroom. She hides it with the cloth. At the same moment she hears someone knocking on the door. To her greatest surprise, it was Lily. Now she feels pain in her stomach and realizes that the broken piece of the mirror is in her stomach. She starts bleeding. Thomas comes to her that her dance was so well that it will always be remembered in history.
Actually, whatever was happening to Nina, it was she herself hallucinating it. Since she felt Lily was her competitor, she used to get her in her visions. At last, also, she had not actually attacked Lily but instead hurt herself to punish her since she couldn’t perform the white swan dance that well. It is also shown that Nina can’t perform well whenever she has fear of something or is under-confident. But when she freed herself at the last, she could give her best. This inspires every viewer to never be insecure, afraid, or underconfident during any performance or any step of life. Also, this movie delivers the lesson that the limit should not be crossed in the race of achieving anything.
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