Jackie

All the trailers of films prior to Jackie bore the words “based on a true story.” Jackie covers “the true story” of the three days of Jackie Kennedy after the assassination of her husband. I put the words in inverted commas as I question its accuracy but even more I question whether the cinema should be producing semi-documentaries. When I think of my favourite films and directors such as Luis Bunuel and Belle de Jour, the erotic fantasies of a bored French wife, I am entranced by the imagination of the director and his creation of a world of neo-sexual reality. Much earlier the classic Dr Caligari’s Cabinet explored a dream world. The essential problem about a true story is that you cannot surprise the viewer. We know President Kennedy was shot in Dallas in an open top car in 1963, we remember the tragic pictures of his young widowed wife holding the hands of her two little children, there can be neither twists nor revelations. I would also argue that it is no challenge for a competent actress to impersonate the Queen, Margaret Thatcher or Jackie Kennedy as the actress has access to her voice. It’s true that one of the few surprises in this film is the odd timbre of Jackie Kennedy’s breathy voice as if she did not complete a course of elocution. Some viewers are impressed by the rendition – so much so that Natalie Portman is in line for an Oscar. I maintain it is far more impressive to get under the skin of a fictional role.

One must also question the accuracy of the portrayal. The Kennedy marriage is presented as a successful one when we all know her husband was a philanderer of epic proportions. In one scene Jackie Kennedy brings out a birthday cake for her son singing “Happy Birthday” and I thought of the time that Marilyn Monroe sang the same song for Jack Kennedy and I wondered where Jackie was. In another scene he dances romantically in a white tie with Jackie like Fred Astaire but the President had a chronic back condition and it’s hard if not impossible to imagine him gliding across the dance floor. I heard on good authority that on the eve of the funeral proceedings her principal worry was how she should be coutured.

Much of the film is an interview between Jackie Kennedy and journalist Billy Crudup in her Hyannisport mansion. Whilst continual smoking she instructs the journo to write that she does not smoke at all. In the modern style she is a feisty woman standing her ground in the somewhat insensitive process of replacing one President with another. As we saw in Black Swan Natalie Portman does edgy, stressed out roles well. She is almost continuously on screen, harrowed, in tears, fretting. Although Lyndon Johnson is portrayed relatively sympathetically a comparison is made between the Kennedy world of Camelot – the musical is often played – and the pragmatic one of the Southern politician and operator.  Yet it was LBJ who provided the more enduring legacy as it was he who passed the legislation of civil rights though his reputation is always tarnished by Vietnam. Jackie Kennedy’s great contribution – as shown in her 1961 film of the tour of the White House – was to raise forever more the profile of the First Lady.

Of the other cast Peter Sarsgaard, who is in everything these days, does well as Bobby Kennedy but best of all in a cameo role as officiating catholic prelate was John Hurt. We realize how blessed we are with British actors as he is perhaps one of thirty senior compelling actors who could deliver this role so perfectly.

Israeli born Natalie Portman as something of Kristen Scott Thomas with her luminous beauty and like her does not avoid challenging roles but in this one I can think of better candidates for an Oscar nomination.