A shocked and appalled widow in a shocked and appalled nation

Rating: 9/10 (21 November 2017)

First to say what the rather play-like "Jackie" from Chilean Director Pablo Larrain IS NOT. It is not the full story of its heroine, whose life extended from 1929 to 1994 and DID continue in some fashion after JFK's death. It is not the story of her husband either - while his death almost entirely dominates the piece, he appears in acted form for just a matter of seconds. This film is not even a retelling of the assassination or the circumstances behind it, though these are, it is true, hinted at.
What we do have here - for a start - is a bit of an explanation of one of the rawest, most shocking and heart-rending real-life sequences ever filmed - you remember that bit where the First Lady, having at first somehow cuddled her husband, then suddenly starts standing up in the open limo and scrabbling about for something on the trunk part of the car (what we in Britain would call the boot)?
For a lengthy first part of the film, Jackie (as played by Natalie Portman) is still covered with her husband's blood, and we see her numbness, anger and embitterment played out step by step in the hours after the assassination, but also in a colder, more contemplative, more calculating, but still angry version, as she is interviewed some time after by a journalist (here played by Billy Crudup). The Crudup-Portman cat-and-mouse interaction in the course of this interview (in part based on a real one) is quite electric, and contrasts with the step-by-step scenes from history in which our star feels abruptly and awkwardly eclipsed by Lyndon and Ladybird Johnson, and tos and fros with the ideas regarding just how stately - or safely dull - the funeral should be. Just how many different emotions must the First Lady have felt at that time? A plethora - and this is made divertingly clear here.
We in fact also see a third version of our lead character, as she appears in a sweeter, more naive version showing TV viewers around the White House when everything was still looking normal and OK.
It is true that Portman produces some kind of near-mimicked version of Jackie, which I know has proved annoying to many, but for me was entirely OK. Indeed a strong performance. A few other actors have interesting/telling parts to play here, and notably Peter Sarsgaard as Bobby Kennedy and John Hurt as the family priest.
So why else to watch this film?
Well, those who want to get a full-life view of Jackie Kennedy Onassis will get nowhere with this work, so this is not the motivation. But for me there is a powerful and genuine reason. As the film makes plain (and all the more so as it lacks the warts-and-all portrayal of JFK that we now know), the assassination, its circumstances and all that came after were a violation of the mandate given to Kennedy by the American people, who never got to see how his full term (conceivably also a second term) would be. They were denied this by a crude, brutal act that created a perhaps-unwarranted legend (Kennedy was elected by 49.7% of the vote on a 62.8% turnout - so nothing special at all). But of course it was utterly wrong, a violation, a breach of the most precious contract between leader and people. And the shock and fear and disgust America rightly felt is what this film has to convey, also through Jackie herself, and that is something worthwhile, something that should forever be recalled.
A new generation should watch to learn of those awful days, those with longer memories should watch to be reminded just how dreadful historical events prone to fading with time actually were.