Regrettably, this movie has little to recommend it. Its goal, I think, is to show us ‘the real Jacqueline Kennedy’ via a psychological portrait after the tragic assassination of her husband in 1963. Director Pablo Larrain has chosen to rely almost exclusively on facial expressions to portray her inner turmoil. It just isn’t enough to carry an entire movie. A film has to take us from Point A to Point B, and this one doesn’t. Additionally, Natalie Portman’s Jackie does not paint a particularly sympathetic woman. She comes across as vapid (with an annoying, breathless manner of speaking reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe’s ‘Happy Birthday’ to JFK) and childish. We see little emotional connection to her children, and little of her relationship with JFK. We get only disjointed flashbacks: a loving ballroom scene, a cold state reception and cryptic comments about JFK’s bad behavior and the unsavory company he keeps. But nothing here provides a cohesive picture of their life together—I walked away feeling totally unfulfilled. We see neither the real Jackie nor the real political reaction to this national tragedy. Mostly, we see a woman consumed by what she is losing: residency in the White House, the occasions to don her lovely gowns and the spotlight of a nation—all shallow material losses. Plus, the silly introduction of the ‘Camelot’ analogy near the end, although historically accurate, came across as trivializing what happened and what the real Jacqueline Kennedy lost.
Should you see it? It’s not on my must-see list.
Viewed at Landmark Theatres Plaza Frontenac
