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The 2010 thriller Black Swan has a captivating and ambiguous ending that can be interpreted in two different ways.
Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman play intense and ambitious ballerinas Lily and Nina who are cast in a production of Swan Lake, and both actors give memorable and strong performances. While there are several movies with fascinating plot twists near the end, Black Swan reveals bits and pieces of Nina's psyche as she prepares for the role of a lifetime.
Black Swan is not only one of the best movies starring Mila Kunis, but the film deserves praise for its thoughtful look at success, competition, and art. The ending of Black Swan leaves a lot of questions, which was exactly the point.
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How Does Black Swan End?
There are two ways to view the Black Swan ending: Nina dances Swan Lane as the lead role, Odette, and dies... or she doesn't die after all. Black Swan is one of Natalie Portman's best movies because she embodies a ballerina who wants to succeed at all costs and who doesn't take care of herself in the process.
As she continues her captivating performance, Nina keeps having hallucinations. In what is perhaps the darkest and most disturbing scene in the entire movie, Nina sees Lily turn into Nina, and Nina stabs this vision of herself using a piece of the dressing room's mirror.
Black Swan Director | Darren Aronofsky |
|---|---|
Writers | Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz, John McLaughlin |
Cast Members | Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder, Barbara Hershey |
Release Date | December 3rd, 2010 (United States) |
Runtime | 108 minutes |
Metacritic Score | 79 |
Where To Watch | Netflix, Hulu |
When this second Nina becomes Lily again, Nina realizes that she has murdered her competitor. Next, Nina continues her performance, and after, Lily appears in Nina's dressing room to tell Nina that she danced well. Nina is perplexed but finishes Swan Lake. When Thomas sees that Nina's waist is bleeding, he wants to know how this occurred. Nina says:
"I felt it. Perfect It was perfect."
While some thrillers like Searching have satisfying endings that wrap up loose ends, Black Swan asks audiences to decide for themselves what has happened. This makes watching the film more than once an interesting experience. There are two ways to view the ending of Black Swan: Nina only thought that she killed Lily and actually stabbed herself... or Nina has imagined the entire thing and is still alive. Both make sense within the context of the movie and audiences are divided about what the end means.
Black Swan reveals Nina's mental state as very fragile as she cares about ballet more than anything in her life. She has visions of things that don't really happen throughout the movie, including seeing herself as the Black Swan/Odile and imagining herself being intimate with Lily.
What Is Black Swan About?
Black Swan is about Nina's journey to become the Black Swan, which is her goal from the beginning of the movie. She wants to perform in Swan Lake as both the White Swan/Odette and the Black Swan/Odile. Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) doesn't think that she has what it takes to be anything but sweet and innocent. He says:
"The truth is when I look at you all I see is the white swan. Yes you're beautiful, fearful, and fragile. Ideal casting. But the black swan? It's a hard f*cking job to dance both."
When Nina says "I can dance the Black Swan, too," Thomas replies:
"Really? In four years every time you dance I see you obsessed getting each and every move perfectly right but I never see you lose yourself. Ever! All that discipline for what?
Whether fans think that Nina dies or not, Black Swan is a powerful story of one character's desire to succeed and become someone different from herself. Both Black Swan and Darren Aronofsky's 2022 film The Whale are dark, emotional stories about characters who feel like outsiders. Just like Aronofsky searched for the right The Whale actor, both Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis are perfectly cast and play both characters as untrustworthy, which adds to the overall mystery.In an interview with Time Out, Portman was asked a question about the two main female characters. While Nina is innocent, Lily is seen as much darker. Portman said, "But it's all aspects of herself, it's one person. Everything happens in her mind, really – that's what made it interesting. We all have those constructs in our mind anyway and to play with how having these prescribed roles affects one woman was exciting to dig in to."
What Is Black Swan's Rotten Tomatoes Score?
Black Swan has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 85% and an 84% Audience Score. According to the reviews that are quoted on Rotten Tomatoes, while some critics thought it was a confusing story, the majority enjoyed the intensity of the storytelling. One of the most memorable movies with an ending that people still debate, Black Swan becomes more compelling with every rewatch.
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