Jackie 2016
This was a movie I wanted to see, but put off watching for a long time. It is kind of hard to get excited about a story about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. However, I am glad I finally watched it. Jackie Kennedy was a very private person, so it is hard to know what she was like. This film provides some insight, seeming to be an honest portrayal of her strengths and weaknesses. The beautiful and talented Natalie Portman seems like a natural fit in the title role. She seems to have borrowed the accent directly from Drew Barrymore in Grey Gardens (which makes some sense since the two women being portrayed were cousins, but it doesn’t feel like a good fit for either actress), but you get used to it. Watching it in 2018, I was surprised to see Oscar-nominated director Greta Gerwig playing Jackie’s assistant Nancy. I appreciate the story staying focused primarily on the days after the assassination, with flashbacks to the day of and to Jackie’s televised tour of the White House. No childhood, very little of JFK, not much of the children. Instead you see Jackie as she makes decisions about the funeral and reflects back on everything by granting an exclusive interview to a reporter, another great performance by Billy Crudup. Robert Kennedy is also played very well by Peter Sarsgaard. There is a quiet burning intensity to all of the main performances, including a very good one by John Hurt who died shortly after the movie was released. Another big star of the movie is the soundtrack which has a stately classical feel mixed in with a little Philip Glass, composed by Mica Levi and nominated for an Oscar along with Portman and the costumes. The movie provides a lot of insight into a very important moment in the country’s history by making it a personal story, but a personal story of someone who knows they are doing all of this for the public. Ultimately we still don’t really know Jackie Kennedy, but it feels like a lot of missing information is filled in.
Written: 10 Mar 2018
Owned on: Digital