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SPOILER REVIEW: Natalie Portman is incredible in Black Swan, the story of a ballerina who must tap into her ‘dark side’ to play the Swan Queen in a New York City performance of Swan Lake. Portman’s performance is a variation on Ingrid Bergman’s in Gaslight, another psychological thriller where you’re never quite sure if things are really happening or if our protagonist is going insane. Oscar saw fit to go home with Bergman, and Portman took home the trophy, too. Portman spills her guts and pulls out every weapon in her acting arsenal here. She’s fearless, raw, vulnerable, determined, and monstrous — all in the same movie. I can’t think of a part that calls for greater range, and the woman nails it.

Director Darren Aronofsky uses some of the same tricks he employed in Requiem for a Dream to depict nightmarish moments where reality collides with paranoid fantasy. I’d like for the finale to have shown a little more restraint where this is concerned. There’s a little too much CGI at a point where Portman already has a firm grasp on her character’s literal transformation. But it’s a minor gripe about an otherwise horrific thriller that hits the ground running (love the impressionistic opening sequence) and never lets up.

And I use the word horror because it applies. Black Swan is about losing control, about losing your body, and not just in a hallucinatory or Kafka-esque way. At one point, Portman’s character is told to masturbate in order to tap her inner passions. When she finally tries one morning, she gets really into it. And in the heat of the moment, she turns her head and opens her eyes. And she sees her mother asleep in the chair beside the bed. People often ask me what movies scare me, and as much as I love horror movies, I don’t really get scared. But the next time they ask, I’m telling them about Black Swan.

With Barbara Hershey and Mila Kunis.