Review of Jackie (2016) by Eduardo C — 20 Dec 2016

The miracle of this film is everyone knows this story forwards, backwards and sideways but this film makes it seem fresh, new and even surreal. It's the most fascinating film of the year as we are made to feel what it must have been like to be her and to be her in the most traumatic time imaginable.

Natalie's performance is legendary, primarily because what I saw was Natalie Portman, she doesn't really look like Jackie. But about halfway in the film I felt I wasn't watching Natalie at all but the first lady, so astonishing is her transformation into Jackie- unfortunately the casting of Bobby Kennedy and LBJ is poor.

JFK is however omnipresent even though he's only seen for a few seconds but not heard about halfway into the movie. Then near the end he speaks in the real JFK's voice and that is especially heartbreaking and then he is seen dancing with Jackie.

As first lady she is an exemplar of dignity, class and intelligence and that is continually interwoven with scenes of her being interviewed about a week or 2 after the assassination- her eyes basically pink-eyed from constant mourning, in which she is caustic, confrontational and bitter, and extreme change from when she was first lady, ever ready to smile for the public and careful to put on her best soothing voice, which further adds to her legend, the fact that she had 2 distinct very different sounding speaking voices, one for the public and one for her self, family and confidants.

An utterly brilliant film.