So, after a few weeks of reading a gabizillion amazing reviews (undoubtedly why it’s racked up so many awards and nominations) and debating on whether I really wanted to fork over the $7 to watch it (hey, times are tough and I’ve had plenty of “OMGaaaahhhhh do I really have another hour left of sitting in this theater?!” moments), I finally went to see Black Swan last weekend.

My own review? One word: WOW.

But it’s not my own Black Swan movie review or how I felt about the film that’s stuck with me since then.

Instead, it’s the playful (or so I thought) Black Swan review from the friend I went with that’s kept me thinking about the movie. Specifically, of course, how it relates to mental health.

(WARNING: Possible spoilers after the jump.)

So, like I said, a friend and I went to see the movie. I spent the majority of the 108 or so minutes starting in awe at the screen, every so often catching him sling a wide-eyed glance in my direction. I figured it was because he wasn’t enjoying it (he tends to prefer “lighter” movies to the “darker” ones I’m always gravitating toward), and after he described Black Swan to the first person we saw afterward -

It was like going along on someone else’s acid trip.

- I laughed to myself.

I could see that.

Strange, off-base visions. Some of them unpleasant. Disturbing. Scary. Many of them unwanted. Most of them uncontrollable.

Sounds like an average acid trip to me. Perhaps one leaning closer to the “bad” side of the scale, but, still – pretty average description.

It wasn’t until I realized he was describing Black Swan that way to everyone we met – and being pretty passionate about it – that I started thinking about how the description actually related to one of the film’s themes – spiraling mental health, perhaps a personality disorder…or schizophrenia? – that I stopped laughing and started listening.

I felt my mind dissolving with hers and I knew it was happening but could do nothing to stop it.

To date, I haven’t read anything concrete about the presence of any specific mental illness or mental health problems in Black Swan. The movie has been labeled “a psychological thriller,” and many articles and reviews simply (and briefly) hint at a “personality disorder” or “spiraling mental health” (and obviously there are other presences, such as drug and alcohol use, a controlling mother, paranoia, and a few obsessions and compulsions), but it’s not like I’m speaking with any authority about exactly what is going on with Natalie Portman in Black Swan.

Still, something is obviously going on and I started thinking about that something in term’s of my friend’s acid trip description.

Was watching Natalie Portman’s character, Nina Sayers’s descent into mental instability similar to a bad acid trip?

I supposed it could be – especially for people who aren’t familiar with or don’t have much experience with mental illness. I could understand how watching someone else’s confusion, frustration, hallucinations, paranoia, and obsessions and compulsions might be compared to going along on someone else’s acid trip.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized the description might actually be a fantastic way to help others understand what some people with mental illness go through. My friend had given me a whole new way to look at the film.

Of course, the more I thought about it, the more I also wondered whether or not that would be stigmatizing.

So, a few days later, during another convo about the movie, I asked my friend, “Did Black Swan change the way you look at, understand, or approach mental illness?”

His response?

Yes. And I realize how helpless one is from the disease.

Well. So far, so good on the stigma-avoidance front.

Have you seen Black Swan? How did you feel or think about the presence of mental illness? Does my friend’s comparison make sense to you, too? Or perhaps someone you know who doesn’t have much experience with mental health issues?

Image Source: Wikipedia via US Fair Use Copyright Law

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    Last reviewed: 9 Feb 2011