Jackie

Jackie Kennedy had to endure the trauma of a horrific experience, and do so with much of the global population looking on in fascination. The film portrays the days and weeks following JFK's murder and the events his widow had to get through.  

Natalie Portman is mesmeric as the eponymous First Lady.  It's a very intimate movie, with Portman almost constantly on screen, often in close up.  Two fictional revelatory devices are interspersed throughout.  In an interview with a journalist Jackie discloses the events of 22 November 1963 and through to her husband's funeral.  And she's seen talking to a priest (it was both saddening and comforting to see the late John Hurt in the role) about her own internal struggles and doubts.  These are mixed with scenes of the events described, and flashbacks to her role in the White House where she established herself as a patron of arts and culture.

Peter Sarsgaard plays Kennedy's brother Bobby, coping with his own emotions, trying to provide support to his sister in law, yet still fully involved in the machinations of government.  There are hints that he, had he not met the same fate, might have made a better president than his brother.  But he also displays the arrogance of the Kennedy clan, even talking disdainfully to the newly installed LBJ.

Our sympathies are clearly with the central figure in the horror of the assassination and  having to deal with her grief in public.  It would have been all too easy to make this Jackie something of a saint.  But Portman's performance is far more human, and we can feel sorry for a character who is, in many ways, rather unsympathetic.  Over-privileged, elitist, patrician, used to getting her own way, at times manipulative.  Her strong will is evident in her efforts to create her own public image, and to ensure that the predominant memory of her is in bolstering the myth of Camelot in the White House.  It's an unsettling, complex portrayal that, however fictional some elements may be, creates a fully rounded human being.

The film has been beautifully shot and there's plenty of stunning images, with Jackie constantly the centre of the maelstrom.  But the editing does create some confusion in the timelines, and I found the musical score to be intrusively contrived at times, trying just a bit too hard to dictate the viewer's emotions.

It's by no means a perfect movie, but still enjoyable and thought provoking.  And at it's heart is a performance that must, surely, win Natalie Portman an Oscar nomination.  It's worth watching just for her portrayal alone.