![\"jackie1\"](\"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Jackie1-203x300.png\")
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The best films about famous people don\u2019t try to tell a whole life’s story.\u00a0 And by focusing on the most well-known event in Jacqueline Kennedy\u2019s life, \u201cJackie\u201d gets the biopic right.<\/p>\nThe best films about famous people don\u2019t try to tell a whole life’s story.\u00a0 And by focusing on the most well-known event in Jacqueline Kennedy\u2019s life, \u201cJackie\u201d gets the biopic right.<\/p>\n
Having already captured the Oscar for 2010\u2019s \u201cBlack Swan,\u201d Natalie Portman has her pick of projects.\u00a0 And the 35 year-old actress is constantly working, whether acting in difficult material directed by Terrence Malick or by writing, directing, and staring in a film as she did in last year\u2019s \u201cA Tale of Love and Darkness.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the appropriately named \u201cJackie,\u201d Portman takes on sacred material by playing First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in the time immediately following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.\u00a0 Portman\u2019s performance is uncanny and utterly award-worthy, as is the film.<\/p>\n
The story picks up in the moments that followed the assassination of JFK in Dallas on November 22, 1963.\u00a0 Starting with the silence piercing gunshot, the script unfolds over a series of glimpses into what happened thereafter not to the President but to the First Lady.\u00a0 It is as though we are right there with her as she wanders about Air Force One covered in her late husband\u2019s blood.\u00a0 We watch through Jackie\u2019s eyes as Johnson accepts the oath of office.\u00a0 And later, we watch again as Jackie participates in the funeral and is ushered out of the White House.<\/p>\n
The end of Camelot through the eyes of its chief architect is intimately chronicled.\u00a0 And it is through those eyes that a particular attitude is taken. Delicately, the film tries to make us understand its subject, as Jackie can feel the walls closing in around her.\u00a0 Whether this take on what transpired is accurate, it is hard to question the tone derived from the film\u2019s point of view.<\/p>\n
Director Pablo Larrain, a Chilean filmmaker being introduced here to US audiences, delivers an essay type meditation on the emotional coaster ride Jackie went through in the days after the national tragedy.\u00a0 No doubt he\u2019s taking cues from \u201cBlack Swan\u201d director Darren Aronofsky, who serves as a producer on \u201cJackie,\u201d this intimate and somewhat experimental narrative attempts to dive deep into the First Lady\u2019s emotional struggles.<\/p>\n
An exercise in capturing personal perspective, the script from Noah Oppenheim is something like a blur between fact and speculation as to what exactly occurred behind the scenes.\u00a0 Oppenheim, whose previous credits include young adult novel adaptations, gives us a completely mature narrative that solemnly conveys an account likely very close to what, in fact, went down.\u00a0 We uniquely climb inside the head of Jackie during that particular moment in history. It\u2019s a very rare thing when a movie transcends so perfectly making the viewer feel something of what its tormented protagonist experienced.\u00a0 It\u2019s moving. Comparisons to \u201cThe Queen\u201d are very fair, with both films appearing to understand their subjects in such a remarkably knowing fashion.<\/p>\n
Portman\u2019s excellent acting combines well with Larrain\u2019s ambitious and purposely disjointed structure and pacing based on Oppenheim\u2019s introspective and well-researched script. We are also given an unusual score by Mica Levi.\u00a0 It will come as no surprise to anyone that Levi gave us all that moody music that helped make 2013\u2019s \u201cUnder the Skin\u201d so affecting.\u00a0 Without being too on the nose, Jackie\u2019s alienation is anticipated wonderfully by Levi\u2019s work.\u00a0 Although music is often a part of the post-production process, one wonders whether Portman\u2019s performance was in some small way influenced by the music choices.<\/p>\n
The atmospheric score also dovetails nicely with cinematographer St\u00e9phane Fontaine\u2019s inventive camerawork using 16mm film often presenting a beautifully textured image especially in closeups.\u00a0 While I watched this film from a DVD (on a large but still limited screen), I can imagine that projected theatrically in the 1.66.1 aspect ratio, \u201cJackie\u201d would look very artful.\u00a0 Fontaine is having a banner year having also lensed \u201cCaptain Fantastic,\u201d and Paul Verhoeven\u2019s \u201cElle.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJackie\u201d is one film in 2016 worth experiencing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Intimate, Focused, and Artful, Portman is Oscar Favorite<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4279"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4284,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4279\/revisions\/4284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}