Funereal pace, erratic performance buries Jackie.

Rating: 5/10 (2 March 2017)

With nearly the entire world privy to this historical display of collective grief the film Jackie attempts to get underneath the moment and images burned into the memories of all who lived through those days as well as the countless re-tellings over the last half century. It is not a pleasant portrait of an icon who showed remarkable courage and dignity in the midst of a mind numbing tragedy but it is an uncharted angle that is daring in theory but mealy and imbalanced in the telling.
Centered around that dark day in Dallas and the period of national mourning following, Jackie presents a varied portrait of the President's widow both weak and strong, sober and medicated, profound and petty. As Mrs. Kennedy, Natalie Portman does not shirk from painting the ideal First Lady beyond the public facade as bitter and understandably disoriented much of the time resembling a more dictatorial Nancy Reagan as she stage manages the funeral plans and the legacy of her husband arguing in hush tones with brother in law Bobby and officials while the shady Johnson people get ready to set up shop. Portman's performance sways from perfect to strident displaying the grace and poise she was famed for while mimicking at times the breathy Jackie with lines meant to emphasize the famous voice that gave us a tour of the White House. It is an undeniably interesting take on a fascinating figure but the film relies on how well we are informed of this event and the films most emotionally powerful moment is to be found in the eyes of Caroline being told of her father's death.
Pablo Lorraine's direction remains low key most of the way, milking the assassination a little more than he should but understandable given it is the film's only chaotic moment with the rest of the film submerged in stoicism and deep melancholy. Along with writer Noah Oppenheim he infers that JFK would have saved the world while the Johnson's with few words are visually portrayed as evil, particularly a dour calcified looking Lady Bird played by an actress 20 years her senior at the time. Whether the creators were attempting to draw a comparison between the vitality of the outgoing administration or make a smug comparison to Lansbury's Manchurian Candidate it is an unwarranted cheap shot.
Lorraine is to be commended for not taking the easier highly admired general view of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, instead making her human with the same petty foibles we possess. But in his sober telling he moves too slowly as Portman presents us with an icon that perhaps is impossible to define or want to humanize by replacing deification with speculation. They should have "printed the legend" instead.