117 ENDTERM – COURSE LEARNING EVIDENCE

Movie Review Outline: “Black Swan”

A. Introduction:

The film’s official short description says that it is about a committed dancer who struggles to
preserve her sanity after gaining the lead role in a production of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake". It
was directed by Darren Aronofsky, written by Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz, and John J.
McLaughlin. The age rating for the film was +16 which was premiered on September 1, 2010, in
the 67th Venice International Film Festival. The main actors of the film were Natalie Portman
(Nina), Mila Kunis (Lily), and Vincent Cassel (Thomas).

B.  Summary of the Story:

In the film, Nina Sayers is a veteran ballerina who is striving to perfect her performance in the
roles of Swan Queen and Black Swan, which are the two characters with opposite personalities
starring in their upcoming show. All through the film Nina was obsessed or attentive in
achieving perfection that was being expected in her. She thinks that for her to successfully
portray the role she must strive for perfection, this obsession has led her into seeing the two
different versions of herself, who she really was and the person she wants to badly achieve. This
can be related to Carl Roger’s Self Theory wherein a person has two kinds of selves: real self
and ideal self. This has greatly contributed to the advancement of the psychotic breakdowns she
constantly experienced.

C.  Analysis of the Movie.

The slow destruction of her self-perception was evident; she was consistently experiencing
hallucinations and delusions wherein she had a hard time in distinguishing the reality. Aside
from those, Nina was also experiencing eating disorders because of the pressure her occupation
comes with. The film was very accurate in illustrating the mind of a person who is suffering
from a serious mental disorder, specifically schizophrenia.

Based off from our discussions in NCM117, the nurse should consider different approaches
when dealing with patients diagnosed with psychosis. It is important for the nurse to understand
the context, decreasing the anxiety felt, assisting in patient’s identification of reality,
psychological treatments that needs intensive attention, ensuring safety, and promotion of family
coping.

D.  Opinion.

I have come to understand that the people who take their jobs seriously like their world is
revolved around it has a higher risk for these mental disorders. Being obsessed with other
people’s perception about you can also contribute to these disorders, therefore pushing people to
their limits can become very dangerous. These scenarios are common in today’s time which
explains why mental disorders a higher rate have recently, we should act in these circumstances
because we may not know, some of our loved ones may also experience these.

E.  Conclusion.

The film was accurate in displaying the mind of a person diagnosed with schizophrenia, if I
were to explain what psychosis feels like, I would gladly recommend watching this film because
of how they were able to portray the psychosis breakdowns experienced by a person. The
actuality was on point, the film was educational yet entertaining.