Nina Sayers, a fragile and repressed ballerina, played by Natalie Portman, strives for the lead in Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake,” a role that will require her to play both the gentle white and the seductive black swans.
Even with Thomas Leroy’s (Vincent Cassell) twisted take on “Swan Lake” in Black Swan, the same basic story is told, with Nina tasked to play the white swan and the seductive black swan. As a result, Nina performs the closing number with a stab wound in her chest, which results in her actually dying at the end.
While Black Swan appears to be a loose cinematic portrayal of the onset of schizophrenia, it likely leaves untrained viewers confused about the diagnostic details of schizophrenia
