Camelot

Rating: 5/10 (19 December 2016)

Even at this incredible, ever-changing, unprecedented moment in our country's history, we are still living in the aftermath of the assassination of the beloved 35th president, John F. Kennedy. What we lost in him was a beautiful, prosperous America that would've sent us all into a golden age. His death sent us spiraling into an age of cynicism and rage. From the battlefields of Vietnam to the streets of Newark, NJ. Our country hasn't missed an opportunity to honor him, especially through film. But what about his beloved, Jackie O? What is her side of this tragic story?
Pablo Larrain directs a visually striking, and beautifully acted portrait of our most treasured of FLOTUS's, complete with another career defining performance from Natalie Portman. She blows the doors off the hinges as Jackie. What a stunning, breathtaking portrayal. I kept forgetting that she was only in a movie. I wasn't watching archival footage. But that's the real strength of the film. It's made to look and feel like a fluid piece of American history, complete with cinematography that looks like it was shot on Super 16mm film. Many moments of the film caught my eye and many others broke my heart. I will always remember the long shot of Jackie, in Air Force One shortly after the assassination, cleaning the blood of her husband off of her face, weeping. Or perhaps what the song "Camelot" meant to her husband, as they danced to it in the very last scene of the film. You feel her agony, and her loss.
But despite all of this well deserved praise, Jackie isn't a film I'd watch ever again. It's extremely slow paced for it's 99 minutes, and that perhaps is deliberate. But it makes for a sleepy time at the movies. Also, Peter Sarsgaard was not convincing as RFK, and neither was John Carroll Lynch as LBJ. Portman's performance as Jackie is so monumental, that the other lackluster performances do not contribute much at all by comparison.