Insightful, moving drama of a woman making history.

Rating: 9/10 (19 March 2017)

The story, first of all, is about coping with trauma. The movie builds up to it, first we see Jackie cleaning blood from her face, then we see her unwilling to change on the first day from the pink suit now bearing some smears of blood. Then more is revealed, and finally, late in the movie, we get a good look at her husband's shattered head in her lap.
Trauma. We see her alone, horridly alone, in the living quarters of the White house. The movie, before all else, is one of the most moving depictions of bereavement I've ever seen.
I will acknowledge here that this cinema will, alas, be boring to those unable or not inclined to empathize with her in this passage.
The other theme is recovery, and the beginning of Jackie's emergence as the social icon she became, and the intentional creation of history. She was never unaware of image--her insistence on letting the world see the blood-spattered suit was the first public presentation decision shown. In the following days, Jackie begins more thoughtfully to lay her hands on the levers of media power, to create the historical image of President Kennedy, and herself, and the lost 'Camelot.' Lightly but evocatively, the movie raises the question of the relation of history and truth, making clear they are not the same thing, any more than the dozens of Jackie-look mannequins suddenly appearing in store windows were a representation of her as a real person.
An afterward--it is clear that distribution of this movie was strangled in December 2016. There was apparently a non-public struggle over this--much publicity was done in anticipation of a wide release that ultimately never happened. Across 99% of the country, the film got only art-house distribution, and only later, at Oscar-time. I suspect the decision was ultimately made that a film showing a close look at a president being assassinated was not a good thing now.