• Reviews

• All
• Music
• DVDs
• Live
• Cinema
• TV
• Books
• Comic Books
• Video Games

Dec 03, 2016 By Shawn Hazelett

Jackie Kennedy is standing in front of a mirror, crying, furiously scrubbing blood off her face. This, just hours after her husband was murdered right in front of her. Instead of mourning or even processing the day’s events, her instinct is to physically compose herself for the inauguration of her husband’s successor.

While history sees little value in the former First Lady, remembering her for (but seeing little value in) her taste and elegance, Jackie sees heroic qualities in the person tasked with scrubbing away the blood. It presents a time of widespread confusion and vulnerability, contrasting it with a person who couldn’t be more focused: she wants to create the most memorable state funeral since FDR, complete with horse drawn carriages and bagpipes. Her planning feels so divorced from the recent tragedy and is entirely oblivious to the dangers of a very public procession that we (and the film’s central characters) rightly wonder: Is she sane? Shellshocked? Is she such a debutante that even a funeral is an opportunity? Or might she be deceptively clever, seeing value in holding such a gaudy procession in the face of fear?

No modern actress is better suited to play Jackie Kennedy than Natalie Portman. Beautiful, captivating, and universally admired, this is a showy role in the prestigious sense but not in the way she plays it. Her subtle pauses and affectation overcome several flaws in the screenplay’s dialogue. Its structural lapses are unfortunately beyond her reach. A framing device involving a reporter lacks subtlety and direction while another involving a priest is both overwrought and cliched. These flaws simply keep the film from being great. As it is, Jackie proves that grace and composure are qualities that matter in our leaders in a year when many Americans want to deny it.

www.foxsearchlight.com/jackie

Author rating: 7/10