Swan Lake is the story of a princess turned into a White Swan by an evil magician. The love she devotes to her prince can not turn his gaze from the easy erotic Black Swan. A tragic tale of beauty told through the elegant dancing of youth long lost. Black Swan is a movie about a dance director who turns a ridiculously innocent girl into a train wreck of Kafka proportions. Unsettling, erotic, and weird however this modern day retelling of Swan Lake isn't very deep.

Nina loves Ballet. She wants ever so much to be the Swan Queen in the upcoming dance tour. Can Nina over come her vulnerability and sexual frustrations to be the perfect dancer? In today's times enjoying sex isn't exactly a mind blowing issue, even for women (gasp). We are beat over the head with how important it is to the ballet that Nina fulfills the deepest darkest wishes of star wars nerds everywhere. Why write a fan fic when you can watch Padme masturbate and get it on with the chick from that 70s show! It's not porn, the score is too classical for that. After all isn't a group of young pretty actresses getting it on a ballet in of itself? Speaking of the Ballet, unlike the sex scenes most of the dancing is filmed waist up. The movies opening features a brilliant dance and dream sequence. The rest of the films ballet is sluggishly amateurish by comparison. A movie so engrossed in sex and erotica ironically blows its wad fast and early on. Maybe as a dance choreographer, this is Aronofsky's "first time"?

Unfortunately this isn't his first time with such material. The wrestler is a ballet of sorts and a far superior one. Black Swan isn't boring but it is a predictable mess. So predictable to the point of actually mimicking the Directors previous work. Super Fans of his films will be very excited to finally see the tortured soul get acknowledged for his suffering but will more then likely be disappointed at how such a unique and original director is being praised for his most unoriginal work to date.

All complaints aside, the performances are very good. Natalie Portman is like Kevin Spacey via American beauty. Both films demand you to be shocked and come away with something learned that only long suffering can teach. However like American beauty the trash bag isn't really dancing, its just a plastic dirty trash bag caught in a all to common draft. The only thing learned from this experience is directors need not come up with new ideas when the same old song and dance is considered a classic.