Plot summary

Nina Sayers is a dancers with a New York City ballet company. She is dedicated to her art and her craft but lacks confidence. She is also pressed on by her domineering mother, also a ballerina in her youth, who gave up dancing when she got pregnant with Nina. Nina seems to achieve her goal when the company's artistic director Thomas Leroy selects her as the lead in their new production of Swan Lake. Leroy is honest however in telling her that while he has no doubt she can handle the role of the white swan, he's not sure she can handle the role of the black swan. Adding to her self-doubts is the arrival of a new dancer, Lily, who seems ideally suited to playing the black swan. To succeed, Nina will will have to transform herself into something she has never been.—garykmcd