Jackie is a film portrait of Jackie Kennedy as she mourns her husband and during some of her iconic moments as First Lady of the United States of America (FLOTUS). I thought that I was completely untouched and unbothered by all the press and breathless praise surrounding Jackie, but I was not. I did not plan to see it. It never even made my mental list of movies that I wanted to see during my brief Christmas vacation. I found myself seeing Jackie on opening weekend with an unconscious sense of urgency. Then throughout the film I kept asking myself several questions. First, why do I need another movie about the Kennedys? Second, is Portman doing a good job? Third, why do I care so much?
First, we need another movie about the Kennedys, specifically Jackie, because of the timing. I found myself thinking about them a lot after a recent visit to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. 45 is desperately trying to evoke Kennedy. He uses Twitter to get his message out to the people and trots out his grandkids (not his youngest son) across the White House lawn while not keeping the backyard playground. US Weekly tries to depict all his kids from different marriages as a cavorting unified brood like the Kennedys playing football on the lawn, but most of them are adults with their own kids. Unfortunately 45 is the anti-Kennedy.
Kennedy was a war hero, a scholar, innovative, but dignified in his use of TV as a new form of media to connect to the people, staunch in his Cold War morals, a lover of the arts, science and innovation, a champion of progressive ideals. The actual tenure was brief. Jackie reminds us that unfair or not, the image of a POTUS often rests on the unpaid shoulders of FLOTUS, who has the thankless, but demanding job of cultivating the image of her husband’s legacy. Jackie is a portrait of a scholar and a writer fiercely elbowing her way into history equally in an effort to honor her husband’s memory and a way for her and her kids to survive. JFK was not around long enough, and Lincoln’s widow died penniless and mad.
Second, Portman did not do a good job in imitating Jackie literally. I don’t think that she quite got the voice right (not breathy enough), and she is smaller, but Jackie audiences are not looking for an imitation. Jackie is not Saturday Night Live. Imitations are for comedy, and Jackie is a drama and a portrait of a soul at turmoil. Portman did what other actresses like Jennifer Lawrence do when she cannot physically transform into the physical demands of a character. In Jackie, Portman creates an unhinged, emotional connection to her character that eventually erases her physical limitations. Jackie is a madwoman in the best possible way. She careens from asking about details, studying the historical moment, making demands to busting the specific balls of a reporter, played by Billy Crudup, and a priest, played by John Hurt, who initially seem to treat her like the standard grieving little woman. Film lovers will not be surprised who is best able to face her.
Jackie is a bitch (compliment) who uses her image as a delicate woman to shame men into acting bravely (de Gaulle) and bully them into bending to her will. Portman’s Jackie is angry, and it was the right emotional choice. Jackie is a woman in an insane situation assessing her life and how short things have fallen with only a select amount of memories of happiness with her cheating husband. Can she make it work? We know the answer to that question.
Third, I cared so much about Jackie as a movie because it was released during a time when a hopeful idealistic administration is ending on a dirge. The narrative structure choice of creating a disconcerting time frame when you cannot tell exactly how long after JFK’s death a conversation is unfolding works. Mourning makes everything go by quickly, and the timeline gets confusing in retrospect whereas other memories jump into focus. All the memory of good times feel like a mockery in the future, and you have to ask if any of it was worth it or if it would have been better never to have made it to the White House if it would prevent such a tragedy from happening. Peter Saarsgard, a weird casting choice for RFK, nails the anger down too, especially in a face off with LBJ, who looks like if his wife were not around, he would ask the mourning brother to catch him outside.
I think that Jackie will improve on repeat viewings and bring a level of understanding to the narrative structure that is not apparent on initial viewing. Jackie is a film that reminds me of Jacob wrestling with the Angel of God and refusing to let go until He blesses him.