Black Swan 2010

Black Swan is a 2010 American psychological horror thriller film directed by Darren Aronofsky, from a screenplay by Mark Heyman, John McLaughlin, and Andres Heinz, and based on a story by Heinz. Starring Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, and Winona Ryder, the film follows a production of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake by the company of New York City Ballet, led by Artistic Director Thomas Leroy (Cassel). The production requires a ballerina to play the innocent and fragile White Swan, for which the committed dancer Nina Sayers (Portman) is a perfect fit, as well as the dark and sensual Black Swan, which are qualities better embodied by the new rival Lily (Kunis). Nina is overwhelmed by immense pressure when she finds herself competing for the role, causing her to lose her tenuous grip on reality and descend into madness. Aronofsky conceived the premise by connecting his viewings of a production of Swan Lake with an unrealized screenplay about understudies and the notion of being haunted by a double, similar to the folklore surrounding doppelgängers. Aronofsky cites Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Double as another inspiration for the film.