JACKIE: Mythmaking in America

Director: Pablo Larraín
Writer: Noah Oppenheim
Cast: Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Billy Crudup, John Hurt, Greta Gerwig, John Carroll Lynch, Beth Grant, Caspar Phillipson
Runtime: 100 mins.
2016

"God doesn't care about stories. God cares about the truth."

So says the priest who Natalie Portman's Jackie Kennedy seeks out for counsel and understanding. It is for this reason that Jackie has little use for God as she endeavors to craft her late husband's cultural legacy. Pablo Larraín's version of Jackie is a student of history, and a newcomer into one of the more privileged families in America; she knows that the truth is created by stories, and the stories are crafted by those with power. While the world projects onto Jackie a young, frightened, grieving widow, Jackie sets about using her social position to shape the history books forever to come--all within the context of that youth, that fear, and that grief.

Such is the nature of this shockingly complex and impactful biopic of Jackie Kennedy, a movie that chooses to dig deep into her most crucial weeks rather than draw a lazy sketch of her entire life. The essence of this character is captured more elegantly in this limited timeframe than it could be in an epic overview. This is what sets every moment of Jackie apart from its floppy biopic peers: Larraín fills Jackie with the crackling energy of a thriller because he has an urgent story to tell, as opposed to the typical biopic approach of "important people's lives are important because they're true."

In fact, Jackie functions well as a pertinent deconstruction of the biopic formula. Rather than the asinine "destined to be important" model of something like The Birth of a Nation, Jackie's story is important because she determined to make it so.

The framing narrative has Jackie putting the bow on that story by dominating an interview she arranges with a curious journalist (Billy Crudup). Although she uses the exchange to go on tangents and explore the depths of her ragged emotional state, as well as the heights of her cunning manipulations, she keeps a tight rein on what she allows the Journalist (as he is named in the credits) to publish. At one point, she laments that there weren't more horses, cars, and people at her husband's funeral procession. The Journalist responds with a hint of awe in his voice: "You were at the center of it all. It's impossible to have perspective. I assure you, it was a spectacle."

Fitting, then, that it took an outsider to tell the story of Jackie right. Although the subject matter of Jackie is as American as it can get, the film is an international effort partially filmed in France and helmed by a Chilean director. The Kennedy Assassination has sunk its roots so deep into our civil religion that it took an outside eye to see the spectacle of it with such clarity. Indeed, the film is so laser focused on its subject that JFK himself barely appears, and is always on the periphery when he does. That choice requires a discipline and restraint that would not have been displayed by a lesser director.

The film is also gorgeous. Outdoor frames are dominated by imposing pillars and indoor frames are crowded with the ephemera of administrations past. Larraín skips between about four major timelines with a deft hand; he never loses us. The color palettes and scenic elements help locate us immediately, and the tenor of Portman's performance cements exactly where and when we are.

That performance is the crowning achievement of Jackie. If you heard her Jackie Kennedy voice on its own, you might assume she was doing some gauche Eddie Redmayne-style nonsense, but in the film, for the entirety of the film, it totally works. Unlike a Redmayne performance, Portman doesn't go through any sort of radical physical transformation to portray Jackie. She still looks like Portman. Nonetheless, from the opening shot of the movie, never once did I feel like I was simply watching Portman doing an impression. She subsumes herself in the role, crafting the title character with the many layers that allow the auspicious narrative to function.

You could call it a tour de force. You could even call it the best performance of the year. But somehow, I don't quite think you could call it showy. Every moment is grounded in something vulnerable or performative, real or surreal, all locked tightly into what the scene demands. Portman doesn't coast on Jackie's mannerisms--she funnels those mannerisms into something spectacularly meaningful.

Yet I haven't even mentioned Jackie's other crowning achievement: Mica Levi's score. Oh wow oh wow oh wow. I was in love with it before the first image of the film even lit up the screen. In any year that did not feature a Cliff Martinez/Nicolas Winding Refn collaboration, this would be a shoe-in for best film score of the year. That opening orchestration, with its warped and deteriorating strings, sets a mood of grand sorrow and uncertainty. The combination of Levi's score, Portman's performance, and Larraín's off-kilter cross-cutting leads to stretches of film that feel absolutely monumental. Jackie is a titan, certainly one of the three best biopics I've ever seen, and vital viewing for its portrayal of a deep, secret undercurrent in American mythological culture.

4.5 / 5  BLOBS