Parents' Guide to

Black Swan

Movie R 2010 110 minutes
Black Swan Poster Image

Common Sense Media Review

S. Jhoanna Robledo By S. Jhoanna Robledo , based on child development research. How do we rate?

age 17+

Magnificent, macabre thriller too intense for young teens.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 17+?

Any Positive Content?

Parent and Kid Reviews

age 16+

Based on 50 parent reviews

age 14+

Disturbing, Intense Thriller with an outstanding perrformance from Natalie Portman.

Violence: 4/5- Self Harm. Bloody realistic injury detail. Mangled feet, broken nails. A woman stabs another woman with glass, not much blood, but it's present. Stabbing with letter opener, very disturbing. Sexual threat. Sex: 4/5- Quite graphic cunnilingus (oral sex) though no nudity. Intense kissing. Sex references. Sexual threat. Language 4/5- Frequent f**k, shit, damn, slut and whore. Drinking smoking drugs 4/5- Women get high on unspecified drug. Drinking. Role models 0/5- Nina is a dangerous unstable character and the people around her don't help. Her mother is controlling. Her director is a creep. Excellent film, Natalie Portman steals the show.
age 18+

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (50 ):
Kids say (100 ):

BLACK SWAN is danse macabre personified, a grueling, tragic, obsessive and gripping film about a ballerina's quest for perfection at the expense of personality and sanity. Director Darren Aronofsky dances between beauty and blight, juxtaposing familiar ballet images (poised dancers with their lithe limbs and pintucked buns, impossibly balanced on the tips of their pink-shoed toes, silhouetted under the stagelights) with horrific ones (bleeding toenails, bony spines, skin scratched raw). The effect is unsettling, frightening even. Sometimes it all feels a little too much -- thankfully, not often.

The actors are in fine form: Kunis is bold and electrifying; Hershey, disquieting; Cassel, layered. Only Ryder, as a washed-up dancer, wobbles, playing Beth with an assured-yet-predictable touch. But the movie really is Portman's. Her Nina is devastatingly fearful, dispiritingly fragile. She has command of her body but not her mind, and Portman, committed from first pirouette to the final moment, disappears. Only Nina remains. Cue the best actress awards.

Movie Details

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