Blinking in Private

Rating: 8/10 (14 May 2001)

There's probably some irony in the quality of Canadian Bruce Greenwood's portrayal of Kennedy -- he's very, very good, and it's the little touches (like casually grabbing hold of passing objects to stay upright, a reference to the legacy of Kennedy's intensely painful wartime back injuries) that make you feel he's stepped into Kennedy's soul. Though it's no surprise he wasn't nominated, it was Oscar-caliber material. Even as he challenges the Kennedy myth by playing him as a man who can anger and entertain doubt in private, he burnishes it by letting his Kennedy submerge all doubt behind perfect resolve whenever it's demanded: the mythic Kennedy nerve.
Overall, the film plays a little fast and loose with persons and actions (though history seems largely unscathed, by contrast with Stone's JFK), so it's best to see this as parable, and see Costner's character as a sort of greek chorus to Kennedy and his cabinet. It's a wonderfully made film, though -- what may become a classic study in how to craft a thriller without physical thrills. The few battle scenes are inconclusive (they conclude in situation and briefing rooms) or end in more or less ignominious American defeat, and as I write this it occurs to me that's critical in the film's success: We're given images and rhetoric of taking punishment as a form of _standing ground_, of _not blinking_.