Black Swan - A Cautionary Tale about Perfectionism

Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan is a cautionary tale about toxic perfectionism. In the final moments of the film, Natalie Portman’s Nina thinks she’s destroying her rival ballerina, Mila Kunis’ Lily, but in reality, she’s destroying herself. On stage, we see her at last fully become the black swan, now free from the controlling repression of the “white swan” within herself. So, what are we to make of this ending?