Disappointing on many levels

Rating: 2/10 (23 September 2018)

As a baby boomer, I watched the JFK assassination unfold on national television. I remember visiting the White House before JFK's assassination. DC felt alive, vibrant, and full of hope. After the assassination, DC was a city in mourning, a cold, wet place in winter. I visited the President's grave site, staring at the "Eternal Flame" as servicemen in their Class A's laid their dress uniform caps on the grave. It is difficult to convey to a younger audience how jarring and scary that period of time was.
It is difficult to convey the courage and dignity Jacqueline Kennedy exemplified during that crucial period of time. Her decision to walk the 8 blocks through DC in the funeral procession made us all think, if she can hold it together, we can.
The film "Jackie" manages to defecate all over that history. Regardless of what took place behind closed doors, the composure that Mrs. Kennedy maintained through that time, her protection of her children's privacy thereafter, and her decision all through JFK's presidency to keep his extramarital affairs out of the public eye, all speak to her strength of character in protecting the interests of the American public and her family.
In the film, however, she is portrayed as a spoiled dilettante more concerned with her loss of status than the loss of her husband of its effect on her children. She is erratic and irrational, chain smoking as she washes down handfulls of prescription pills with whatever bottle of booze is handy.
Her famous televised tour of the White house is characterized as a vanity project, in which she is made to appear lacking in confidence or poise, repeatedly being coached on camera by her aide to smile, look up, stay on task.
With respect to the film's writers, I watched the televised tour of the White House. You can too -- look it up on You Tube. Make up your own mind about whether Mrs. Kennedy was poised and articulate, or the deer-in-the-headlights, materially obsessed debutante portrayed in the film, whose most significant commentary on the renovation of the White house was "as long as it's the best."
There is so much that could have been said or shown about what Mrs. Kennedy endured before, during, or after that horrible week in November of 1963 that would have made this an intriguing and informative film. Sadly, none of it made it to the screen, which might explain the film's lukewarm reception and dwindling viewership.
If you haven't yet seen "Jackie," don't bother.