Review: Jackie
The story of Jackie
Kennedy-Onassis (Natalie Portman) in the aftermath of the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy. Peter Sarsgaard plays Robert Kennedy, John Carroll
Lynch is JFK’s successor Lyndon B. Johnson (Carroll is acceptable but looks
nothing like the man), whilst Beth Grant is his wife Lady Bird Johnson.
I can’t say I’m an expert on
Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis, but all I can say about her portrayal in this 2017
biopic from director Pablo Larrain (his first Hollywood assignment, I believe)
and writer Noah Oppenheim (“The Maze Runner”) is that I didn’t believe much of anything here. Very
little convinced me, including a miscast Natalie Portman’s Oscar-nominated
performance in the title role. And performance is indeed the right word here,
because as good as Portman can be sometimes (“Beautiful Girls”, “Heat”,
and “Black Swan”), she never once suggests she’s doing anything here
except giving a ‘performance’. She’s tried so very hard to nail the accent, the
body language, and demeanour of Jackie O, that she forgets to make her
flesh-and-blood. Instead, all I saw were the gears turning inside Portman’s
head. She also doesn’t look remotely like the woman, far too petite and girlish
for one thing. She never looks like anyone other than Natalie Portman. And then
there’s the voice. Oh, dear. It’s not that Portman sounds absolutely nothing
like Jackie O, it’s more that; a) She’s trying too hard and the work is all
over her face and in her voice, and b) She has overegged it to the point where
she sounds like a mixture of Jackie O, Marilyn Monroe, and that weird
royal-speak Portman affected in “The Phantom Menace”. It sounds far too
artificial and forced, and when added to Portman’s interpretation of Jackie O’s
mannerisms and facial expressions that seem far more Marilyn Monroe than Jackie
O, it’s seriously bizarre and wrong-headed (Combining Jackie O with the woman
her husband had a fling with?). Portman’s basically doing an imitation of the
woman, which would be fine if she actually got the imitation right. By failing spectacularly (and
being miscast in the first place), it’s a very awkward and uncomfortable thing
to watch and listen to. I swear Anne Hathaway, Rachael Weisz, or Elizabeth
Reaser would’ve been a much easier sell in the role. As is, 10 minutes in and I
was already out.
It’s not just Portman I took issue
with here, the entire film is surprisingly underwhelming and unengaging. The
film paints Jackie as tough and not suffering fools easily, but the wraparound
with her and journalist Billy Crudup is cliché and I think the scope of the
film probably should’ve been wider. The film is surprisingly rather short, and
I don’t think it’s to good effect. I wanted to know who Jackie O was before
JFK, and who she was years after JFK’s death. Whilst the film is about Jackie O
and is sympathetic to her, it’s really telling the story of how she coped with
the death of her husband. It sees her as JFK’s widow, and while JFK is the
bigger figure and perhaps even the more interesting figure, it does seem a
shame that someone has made a movie about Jackie O and tied her entirely to her
husband. She was a person before and after JFK, and that was the stuff I really
wanted to know about. What we do get isn’t as interesting, aside from one scene
where she gets someone to describe to her what the arrangements were for when
Lincoln died. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they start from the assassination
(otherwise it’d be all about JFK and his ‘little woman’…and his mistress), but
I just wish they hadn’t focussed on such a narrow period, and frankly a not
very interesting period. The only interesting thing to me about the immediate
aftermath of JFK’s assassination was the investigation. Jackie O’s story during
this period is all predictable, mundane cliché. I mean, why is John Hurt here
in a useless part as a priest? What an uninteresting waste of the late actor.
Although he’s OK and better than Portman, Peter Sarsgaard is simply not RFK
beyond the haircut. He’s also a bit glum, to be honest and has been far better
elsewhere. The best performance is actually by Greta Gerwig (who I didn’t even
recognise) as Jackie O’s aide Nancy, though the character isn’t given much to
do beyond being a confidante and secretary. Beth Grant was born to play Lady
Bird Johnson, but sadly gets next to no screen time.
The best thing I can say for this
good-looking but unconvincingly performed biopic is that you do ultimately come
away with a lot of respect for this amazing, strong woman. She was quite
clearly a helluva lady. However the narrow focus is not particularly
interesting, and Portman’s performance is every bit a ‘performance’, an
unpersuasive act. Very disappointing, Jackie O deserved better than this.
Rating: C-
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