On the Creepy Film Double

I recently viewed the film Black Swan, a fairly uncomplicated tale of a ballerina's breakdown gussied up with mirrors, blood, and creepy special effects to create a relatively satisfying psychological thriller. Most interesting to me, though, was the only partially successful exploration of the double/impostor as a major theme of the movie. In the process of her transformation into the swan, Natalie Portman's character is tormented by both mirror images of herself and girls who seem to have her face, and of course everyone is a kind of double for her even from a sane perspective: the retiring swan queen who throws herself under a bus, the failed ballerina mother who has (creepily) transferred all of her energy to her daughter, the other indistinguishable ballerinas, and the mysterious new girl who becomes Portman's alternate/nemesis/double/lover/victim. The simultaneous splitting of self into two parts (black swan and white swan) and attaching the black swan self to other actual people made for interesting possibilities for special effects and even created suspense here and there, but ultimately lacked something. I will acknowledge the possibility that this was the point, that no one can possibly understand an unsound mind, but there is something of the cop-out in that idea.

However, I understand the sinister quality of the idea that one could be replaced by some sort of impostor. We all want to believe that we are unique, and that we are in particular careers or relationships because we are uniquely qualified to be in them. We are also afraid that this is not the case; we worry that some impostor could replace us, or even worse, that we are impostors and could be replaced by the legitimately unique and qualified versions of us. Black Swan used ballet to mostly successful effect (though I'm sure ballerinas are going to be livid!), and I'm going to be looking for my doppelgangers everywhere now.