Jackie

(Warning: contains spoilers for Jackie)

Jackie is a biopic, based loosely on the interview Jackie Kennedy (played by Natalie Portman) gave to Life magazine a week after her husband's death (An Epilogue which can be read here: http://time.com/4581380/jackie-movie-life-magazine/).  The film focuses on the immediate aftermath of the assassination of JFK, and as such offers a confused, conflicting, often jarring portrayal of grief (and particularly, grief in the public eye).

Theatrical Poster

 The story-telling switches from present day (the interview), to subject matter (the assassination and it's aftermath), to prequel (the Kennedys moving into the White House, and a documentary of Jackie inviting television cameras to survey the interior of the building).  It becomes slowly obvious that in this era of television cameras, no one is quite sure of the protocol anymore and no one quite knows how to look away (it was the assassination of Kennedy that led to rolling news coverage on some American network channels).  The cameras stay intrusively close, an interesting directorial choice by Pablo Larrain in his interpretation of Noah Oppenheim's script. As such, Jackie travels from Dallas and accompanies her husband's body while still wearing the infamous pink wool outfit, lashing out angrily when it is suggested that she change outfits so the cameras don't see the bloodstains ("I want them to see what they have done to Jack.")  Awkwardness continues as Lyndon B Johnson is sworn in as president (with a bloodstained Jackie standing nearby), while Jackie and her children continue to live in the White House, as they pack up their lives and their administration.  "I'm not the First Lady anymore", she notes, trying to balance the politics of the situation (the country must continue to be governed, business must continue as usual), with the personal (being a mother, and a widow).  The clash between the personal and political continues in the planning of the funeral - Jackie wants to be able to walk beside the coffin as the wife of her husband ("I will march with Jack, alone if necessary"), while the secret service understandably fret that a huge state funeral makes for a number of high risk targets while a shooter is potentially still at large.

We see a great many sides of Jackie Kennedy - the shrewd, media savvy woman who becomes fixated on the legacy of her husband, heavily censuring and editing the conversation she has with Time's journalist ("Take that bit out - I don't smoke and never have", she demands, as she chain smokes her way through the interview); a focussed organiser preparing for a state funeral comparable to Lincoln's; the spiky and raw widow who isn't entirely sure who to listen to in a world where everyone has an opinion on how she should be and what she should be doing now; the serene debutante-looking beauty who waltzes with her husband in their Camelot; the mother who isn't sure of the right way to break the news to her children; the angry, God-hating Catholic, railing at a priest; the shocked victim who rinses the blood out of her hair and goes to bed alone.  This was my confusion as I watched the film: Portman's Jackie careened so suddenly from one state to the other - occasionally in the same breath - that I couldn't quite get a hold of what I was looking at.  And when I worked it out, it was so obvious - this is what grief looks like.  Intimate and public, crushing and liberating, practical and theoretical, intrusive and alienating, angry, sad, violent and everything in between.

Grief and its incarnations.

There is an impressive cast, from Billy Crudup's journalist, to Peter Saarsgard's Robert Kennedy, John Hurt's priest (in his final performance before his death last week) to Greta Gerwig's Nancy Tuckerman.  They all play their parts well, but are eclipsed by Natalie Portman who holds this film together.   The cameras move away for one jarring, violent scene at the end where we see the assassination from Jackie's point of view.  It brings the film full circle, but it's unexpected, vivid and gruesome, as the event was itself.  It marks the end of Camelot. 

"Don’t ever let it be forgot, that once there was a spot,
for one brief shining moment that was Camelot.”

Additional thoughts, comments and questions: 

• Natalie Portman has been Oscar nominated for this role, and she and Emma Stone (La La Land) seem to be carving up the awards between them.  It seems it may be a coin toss as to who gets the Oscar. 

• This is also a film about image and legacy.  It's evident pre-assassination as the Kennedy's try to decide how to decorate the White House and explain themselves to the press.  It's evident as well-meaning aides suggest that Jackie and her children leave out back doors so as not to cause distress.  It's evident in the planning of the funeral - it needs to be as big as Lincoln's so Kennedy cannot be forgotten (even though, arguably, Kennedy hasn't yet done anything to warrant the pomp and circumstance of Lincoln's.  He's barely half way through his first term as president).  It's evident as Jackie gives a lengthy interview to Time and then rewrites the article herself anyways.  Arguably, one of the least image considered moments is in the blood spattered car, as Jackie reacts in horror as she tries to hold her husband's skull together.

• The iconic pink suit remains in archive.  Caroline Kennedy donated the suit in 2003 (9 years after her mother's death) on the understanding that it doesn't go on display until at least 2103.  No one knows what happened the hat.  (Not related to the film, per se.  Just an interesting fact.)