We take a look into the grief Jackie Kennedy is suffering from after the assassination of her husband President John F. Kennedy and what she did to ensure he would have a legacy.
I will admit that I really should have done some research before heading to see this film as while we all know about JFK in terms of him being assassinated and the rumours of the affair he had with Marilyn Monroe all other knowledge was none existent. I never realised just how young Jackie was when having to deal with it.
We are taken on the story as she is speaking to a reporter (for Life magazine) who is told a few different things about the fateful day that she was sat alongside her husband in the car. I thought it was a pretty clever way to do the film in flashing between three different stories. Obviously all linking to the event and attempting to deal with grief. But what exactly will she allow in the article?
Obviously we don’t know for sure if everything we are told in the film is true in terms of how she managed to deal with everything going on. Or how she actually struggled to be strong for her young children, thinking that her life was now over as well. Not realising that she now had nothing of her own, or that she could call her own.
I was hoping that as part of the film that we might have got more of her backstory and how she got to where she was, but it did not do that at all. It really focused on that day and the weeks after to planning the funeral. She really wanted to make it a huge event to show that the country and world would remember him by. Criticism from many people around her about how it was going to be but it was something that defined how tragic the event really was.
Natalie Portman was very strong in the role and at times you actually forgot who it was and just saw her as Jackie. Surely that has to be a massive compliment for someone acting that you actually forget exactly who is taking on the role and just see it for the character. I am undecided in all honesty if it is truly worth of winning the Best Actress Oscar, as I have seen Portman in better roles. But we all know the Academy love this type of performance.
I guess a film that shows someone dealing with grief is very interesting though as it is something you cannot judge until you have something happen. You just don’t really know how you would react to something extremely traumatic, this film shows that it is ok to figure out different ways to do just that.
As soon as I came out of the cinema I wanted to know more about the Kennedy’s and everything that they had done. Especially with what Jackie went on to do after John’s death. Certainly plenty of tragedy is wrapped up in all generations of the family, which I guess makes everything surrounding this film even sadder as this event was the biggest. It would have been interesting to see what the public’s reactions to the death was but I guess they were really focusing everything on Jackie!
