Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Jackie

I love this time of year because this is the time when the Broadway screens all of the films generating Oscar buzz.  No one is getting more buzz than Natalie Portman for her performance in Jackie so this film was high on my list to see over winter break.  It follows Jackie Kennedy (Portman) in the days after her husband's assassination through flashbacks during an interview given to Theodore White (Billy Crudup) for Life magazine.  We see Jackie during the immediate aftermath of the shooting in Dallas, witnessing the oath of office administered to Lyndon Johnson (John Carroll Lynch) aboard Air Force One, telling the children about their father's death, making preparations for the funeral, and leaving the White House after her efforts to restore it.  Through it all, Jackie expresses her profound grief and demands that JFK's legacy be protected.  Portman gives the performance of her career and I literally could not take my eyes off her. She physically resembles Jackie Kennedy but it is the voice which sells the performance, particularly during the filming of the White House tour.  I was also struck by the scene between Jackie and a priest (John Hurt) where she discusses JFK's infidelities and the scene where she drunkenly relives her shining moments in the White House by going to each room in the clothing she wore for those occasions.  The score by Mica Levi is incredibly stirring but it is the use of the music from the Broadway musical Camelot that is especially dramatic.  I highly recommend this film for Portman's brilliant portrayal of the enigmatic former First Lady.

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