Jackie

seen on 21 January 2017

Directed by Pablo Larrain and starring Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy, Peter Sarsgaard as Bobby Kennedy, Greta Gerwig as Nancy Tuckerman and Billy Crudup as the Interviewer, this film examines the devastating effect of John F Kennedy's assassination on his widow. 

There are flashbacks to the creation of the documentary in which Jackie Kennedy guided a film crew through the White House after her extensive (and expensive) restorations in 1961, but most of the film is concerned with the immediate aftermath of the assassination, days in which Jackie is often overpowered by grief, but is also resolutely planning and insisting on a grand state funeral emulating that of Abraham Lincoln's almost a century earlier. There are, finally, scenes set in Hyannis Port, the Kennedy enclave in Massachusetts, some time later, in which a journalist is interviewing Jackie, who proves at times vulnerable and at times filled with steely resolution.

The structure of the film is intriguing, because these elements are not presented chronologically. Instead, they are interleaved and overlapped, both emphasising the extremes of Jackie's experience and at the same time keeping us at some remove from her. This tactic preserves something of the historical character's enigmatic public persona. Her appearance in the White House documentary shows the gaucheness of an inexperienced media presence (a sign of the times as much as anything else: nowadays, one assumes, public figures spend more time learning to be at ease in front of the cameras). But in the crisis of preparing for the state funeral, she is determined and in control. Even when she momentarily falters in her plan to have all the attendees walk behind the cortege, this looks like a strong prudential decision. When she reverts to the original plan, the idea that she is vacillating hardly gains ground as she neatly if provocatively makes prudence look like cowardice.

Natalie Portman's performance is entirely plausible, catching Jackie's mannerisms without succumbing to mere imitation, and easily commanding the film. The supporting cast is also very strong. The political crisis is not the focus of the film, so the tension between the Kennedy administration and the incoming Johnson team is barely hinted at, but this is appropriate given the principal area of interest, Jackie Kennedy's own (presumed) experience. She several times mentions the Johnsons' "kindness" in a way that may indicate that this is a polite fiction, but the extreme awkwardness of having to vacate the White House in an emergency rather than as the result of the normal democratic process is here almost a distraction from her sense of her larger responsibility.

The occasional recourse to documentary footage is discreetly handled and underlines the skill with which the period and the events have been recreated by the director and his team.

Fascinating.