Jackie

Directed by Pablo Larrain

Starring Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Greta Gerwig, John Hurt, Billy Crudup, John Carroll Lynch

[rating: 4/5]

Sensitive, haunting, insightful, empathic. These are the words that came to mind as I watched Pablo Larrain’s new film Jackie, a bracing study of Jacqueline Kennedy in her White House days before and after the bloody assassination of her husband John F. Kennedy on November 22 of 1963 in Dallas (and a word of warning, never before has it been recreated so graphically on film). Films have of course been made about this event before, JFK, most notably, and the curiously flat Parkland, but never has anyone examined the trials and tribulations of his wife. It’s all here. How she remained in the now iconic blood-stained Chanel suit, how she watched Lyndon Johnson take his oath, how she broke the news to her children, how she insisted on marching in the funeral procession for all the world to see. It is an powerful film, and infinitely more engaging than I expected. Mica Levi provided the score and so overpowering is it, it too becomes a character. As things twist and turn for Jackie, Levi’s heavy string-laden score literally slides down and coils around the drama. You can’t help but be drawn in.

Together with Larrain’s refusal to be sentimental, it’s the intimacy of the piece that packs the biggest punch. The film is framed by an interview with The Journalist, as he’s listed in the credits and played neatly by Billy Crudup, who is standing in for Theodore H. White of LIFE magazine. In these scenes, where she discusses the similarity between the Kennedy years in the White House and Camelot (Richard Burton’s booming voice singing the title track gives the action a thrilling lift) and the moment when the bullets started flying, she’s challenging, confrontational, and controlling. Wisely, Larrain doesn’t deliver a run of the mill biopic. We feel the lady’s history prior to this account enough just watching her and hearing her. It’s her emotional state we’re made privy to here.

At the centre of it all is the now legendary performance by Natalie Portman. Her name’s been bandied around constantly this award season and pundits are understandably declaring her a serious threat to her competitors. Watch her in the recreated footage of the famous live video tour of the White House as she discusses furnishings and her abiding respect for and love of tradition. It is an eerie, miraculous turn that blurs the line and despite previous attempts by actresses such as Jacqueline Bisset and Katie Holmes, we now have the definitive portrayal. She’s poised and elegant but the voice is the clincher. The timbre has that lively Marilyn Monroe bounce, and it’s instantly ingratiating and quietly funny; for those who’ve never seen the footage, search for it on YouTube.

Stephan Fontaine’s cinematography is an integral element. It would have been so easy to just let the scenes play out but there’s a European sensibility here that heightens the drama, whether we’re looking into Jackie’s face in startling close-ups or walking with her through the White House in the days that followed.  The mood does shift in the interview sequences. The dialogue feels stilted and uncomfortable. Larrain was clearly after a contrast (and it almost takes us out of the film) but as essential as these scenes are, it’s the study of how Jackie dealt with the loss, alone, that works here.  From first to last, fascinating.