A So-So Portrayal That Just Didn't Connect With Me

Rating: 5/10 (15 April 2017)

I was born one day before JFK's assassination. I obviously have no memory of the event, and only the most limited memories of Jackie - and I remember her mostly as Jackie Onassis and not as the First Lady of the United States. I was interested in this movie for historical reasons. The Kennedy assassination is still one that intrigues people. There is, however, little about the actual shooting, aside from a pretty graphic portrayal of the impact of the bullet that hit JFK in the head near the end of the movie. As the title suggests (so it should come as no surprise) the movie is more about Jackie and her response to the shooting. Natalie Portman seemed to do a decent job as the title character, but somehow she just failed to connect with me. Something seemed off to me; something seemed missing. Certainly she captured the shock Jackie must have felt. In a whirlwind of a few days she went from being First Lady of the United States to the president's young widow, having to move out of the White House to make way for Lyndon and Ladybird Johnson, with no real plan for where to go or what to do with the rest of her life. All that came through, but Portman just didn't "connect" with me. I didn't find myself emotionally drawn in with Jackie, and in this kind of movie that's a definite problem. It's sombre and dark - as it should be. It shows scenes like Jackie wiping JFK's blood off her face. I should have "felt" something for her plight. And I didn't. That was a problem.
I also found it strange that the story kept coming back to the famous 1961 TV tour of the White House that Jackie gave. I didn't think that was a particularly effective means of moving the story along, nor did it reveal much to me about Jackie.
It's hard to say exactly what the problem was. Something just seemed missing here. I can't explain it any better than that, but this movie failed to make much of a connection with me. (5/10)