On Jackie

Tales of the Kennedy family are infectious. That much is clear. America has been unable to move beyond the conspiracies surrounding the doomed family name for decades. JFK’s tale is one so well told that people born years later know his fate and can describe the infamous Dallas images as if they were there. In short, the man and his death are iconic. Sewn into and defining aspects of American culture. What could the country have been had the man they imagined he was been allowed to have lived and preside? It is hard to ignore or forget a man who holds such power posthumously, who continues to invite comparison and investigation over 50 years later.

It is hard too, for the filmmaker to take the Kennedy story and tell it again so that we see it with fresh eyes. Yet, Jackie achieves this and becomes an intoxicating tale of the family. It is stunningly layered and captivating performance from Natalie Portman, one deserving of all the recognition, but one perhaps too difficult to really love. Here, Jackie is more than a grieving widow, she is a woman obsessed with legacy, aware of infidelities, but unable to let her husband as anything other than great. This really is one of the more fascinating explorations of grief on screen. Pablo Larraín’s camera lingers closely, allowing us intimate access to the parts of Kennedy’s death that are not familiar, although it should be mentioned that this representation of the assassination is as realistic, intimate and artistic as any seen before. Portman sheds any signs of vanity and produces a performance of similar intensity to Black Swan (2010).

Write Noah Oppenheim smartly cushions this narrative within the one-week timeframe, from the death to the burial, with flashbacks to flesh out certain aspects. This means we never feel lost in the maze that is Kennedy conspiracy, nor do we ever feel unsure about where this story is going. A fate that can befall many a biography. The Kennedy family has been showing up in film, in one form or another, for decades. Jackie is one of the better insights into this beguiling family.