Jackie (2016)

JACKIE  (2016)  ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Pablo Larraín
    Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Greta Gerwig,
    Billy Crudup, John Hurt, Richard E. Grant,
    Caspar Phillipson, John Carroll Lynch, Beth Grant,
    Max Casella, Corey Johnson, Aidan O'Hare
Natalie Portman plays Jacqueline Kennedy in the days immediately following the assassination of JFK, in a movie that's not incoherent exactly, but always a little sketchy around the edges. It's like one of those reenactments created for the History Channel: a reasonable facsimile that never quite captures the look or feel of the real thing. There are times, especially in profile, when Portman comes close to resembling Jackie. More often, she looks like the younger sister of Kristin Scott Thomas. Peter Sarsgaard is good as Bobby Kennedy, but you'd never look at him and think, there's Bobby Kennedy. Caspar Phillips0n is a dead ringer (bad choice of words) for JFK, but this is Jackie's movie, and Jack's on the periphery. The picture goes out of its way not to deify Jackie. In the aftermath of Dallas, she's a basket case (who wouldn't be?), but she can also be cold and manipulative, spoiled and temperamental, wounded and indecisive, depending on which way the fates are knocking her around. Talking to a journalist (Billy Crudup) and determined to shape her husband's legacy while she can, she's a chain-smoking bitch. Leading Charles Collingwood on a televised tour of the White House, she's all staged, whispering charm. I don't know how close any of this gets to the real Jackie, but one thing's certain. She was a lot more complex and emotionally volatile than the elegant, carefully composed images we saw during her time in the White House, on the magazine covers and on TV.