Jackie (2016)

Before watching Pablo Larraín‘s Jackie, I knew very little other than the historical context. I had learned about J. F. Kennedy at school, his actions in the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Of course, I knew he was assassinated. So I guess what I am saying is that I knew it was about J. F. Kennedy’s wife, Jackie(Natalie Portman). I hadn’t watched any trailers, but I had seen the blood red poster that’s very striking. This film was recommended to me by a friend and I also saw it on the Oscar nomination list for best actress in a leading role. I am generally a big fan of biopics so I was excited for this one as it was of someone I knew very little about, much like how I enjoyed Gandhi (1982). Just before viewing the film, I read a synopsis that told me that it was about the events after Kennedy’s assassination, which interested me further because I knew very little about what had happened to her in that time, other than keeping her bloody clothes on during the inauguration of Lyndon B. Johnson. Knowing that and nothing more, I jumped into the film.

What to say about this film? I am sort of in a muddle about it. I want to say that I can see why it wasn’t nominated for best picture this year at the Oscars, but I can also very much see why Natalie Portman was nominated for best actress in a leading role. I found myself disinterested in the film at quite rapid intervals, which is a very bad sign. I am trying to figure out why that is. Could it be because of its fractured chronology being too complex or simply because the film’s stakes were not very high? Either one or both reasons would put a weakness to this film’s name. I’ll explain the chronology. It began with Jackie meeting the Journalist(Billy Crudup) after the funeral, start at the end, then it flashed back to before the assassination. The narrative jumps between these, mostly in a smooth way, until just after the midpoint where it jumped to after the interview, where Jackie is talking to a Preist(John Hurt). I became confused when she was talking to the priest in relation to the rest of the events. Although, this is most probably because I lost interest at a vital point — my own fault? I felt that the narrative jumped about in time too often, I got lost in the time scale of when everything happened and I spent more time trying to figure it out than I spent enjoying Portman’s acting. When said that the stakes were not high, I meant that I did not feel a great amount of risk in all honesty. The main risk that is meant to flow through the film is that JFK might get forgotten, I think? Either that or the idea that Jackie or her children could get shot, but that just didn’t feel real, maybe because I knew it didn’t happen so I was secure. So perhaps I am looking for stakes where none were necessary, perhaps it was meant to be a personal film like how I thought of Fences. However, I felt like there wasn’t enough of Jackie actually showing her true emotions, she was so busy caught in the bureaucracy and planning the funeral, that we got one or two scenes of her with her children and another two scenes of her crying. This is not enough, I didn’t feel like an intruder, I felt like I was watching a documentary that was just stating cold, emotionless facts: “And then Jackie told her children, she went to another room and wept.” This isn’t real to me. I expected to see shock and emotion, not the cold hard facts of what happened. It is majorly possible that I feel this way because of the narrative structure, I did not see Jackie progress. I have to give credit to a few scenes where I saw a fantastic performance from Portman that was well shot and edited. One, in particular, is when she is seen wiping blood and tears alike from her face. That was powerful, filled with emotion and I felt her character.

Now that I have had my complaints said and out of the way I can talk about Portman’s performance in this film! I thought she was spectacular on everything, especially when compared to the archive videos of the real First Lady. At first, having not heard Jackie Kennedy’s voice, I thought Portman’s voice was very peculiar and didn’t work, however, after seeing archive footage I realise how accurate it was! I thought it was incredible how close the two people became, down to the mannerisms. Other than the voice, I thought that Portman’s walk was extremely distinctive and, to me, that shows how Natalie Portman has honed in on a specific and detailed character out of the historical figure. This was further helped by the close casting of other figures around our protagonist, such as J. F. Kennedy(Caspar Phillipson) and Lyndon B. Johnson(John Carroll Lynch). All of this, combined with the set designs and costumes make it a very convincing period piece. I certainly do not know enough about the history to find discrepancies of events people or relationships so that cannot factor into this review. While I am speaking of aspects of the films I enjoyed I can mention a moment when Jackie is at the funeral and the scene is crosscut with shots from the assassination scene earlier in the film. I found this very powerful and rich. Larraín found a way to show all of Jackie’s emotion and thought processes with simple two-second edits in the scene. This is much more simple than what the rest of the film tried to do with its fractured chronology, as well as meaning a lot more to the viewer. The drive became the emotion rather than Jackie’s intentions for her late husband, which is a lot more easy to watch and fall into. I believe that it was meant that we followed her emotional journey, but because we didn’t see it in order, and Jackie’s front to everyone was to secure her husband’s legacy, I became lost, unfortunately.

Overall, I wish I had more to say about this film. I like some aspects greatly and didn’t like other aspects as much. Portman’s performance was honestly unbelievable to watch, incredibly done and I wasn’t really expecting it which makes it that much better. Despite how great the acting was from the lead, it was disrupted by the overall filmmaking —  even taking into account the more interesting moments. I was disappointed by this, especially as this film was suggested by a friend. I wish that I could rearrange the events so that I could truly track the progression of our character and, I guess, that is what I learned most from this film. It is that if you want to use a fractured chronology (Start at the end, for example) it has to be used with a purpose. It needs to make the audience ask, “how did that person become like that?” However, this film did not do that. To me, there was not a stark difference between the start Jackie and the interview Jackie. Again, this is all my opinion and if someone can explain a reason why this editing choice was made with clarity, I would most likely agree with them. I would only recommend this film to either history buffs, or filmmakers willing to learn. At least I can say that I took something useful away from this film. To state again, for clarity, this film was not all bad at all. Portman and the period feel were both stupendous.