By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Pablo Larraín
Cast: Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Greta Gerwig, John Hurt, Richard E. Grant, Caspar Phillipson, Beth Grant, John Carroll Lynch, Max Casella and Billy Crudup.
Rating: Excellent.
Chilean director, Pablo Larraín, who made the acclaimed international Film “No” in 2012 makes his international debut with “Jackie” and once again it delivers.
Based on true events, “Jackie” tells the story of then First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy (Natalie Portman) in the aftermath of the assasination of her husband former President of the United States John F. Kennedy.
A journalist (Billy Crudup) comes to her house for an interview to describe what happen during her time in the White House.
In Flashbacks we will see the rise of the Kennedy’s when they were in the White House and the asssasination of The President that took place in Dallas, Texas and until this day nobody know who shot him.
Now Jacqueline Kennedy must fight and get over the trauma of the assassination of her husband and the most important thing to preserve the historic legacy her husband left.
One of the things that worked on “Jackie” was the way the story was told and the use of flasbacks in this kind of movies do work at all levels.
The direction of Pablo Larraín was sharp, and detailed and the performance of Natalie Portman as Jacqueline Kennedy was impressive at all levels.
Her performance has been one of the most powerful of this year and most likely she will score a third Academy Award Nomination for her career with her performance.
Other great performances were from Peter Saarsgard, who played John F. Kennedy’s brother Robert is remarkable as well as the rest of the cast.
The screenplay written by Noah Oppenheim who wrote “The Maze Runner” and “Allegiant” was very well written and I was very surprised of the amount of detail this movie had. The dialogue of the script was real and organic and made Natalie Portman’s performance more real every time she was portraying Jackie Kennedy.
The Cinematography by Stéphane Fontaine, who shot this years “Captain Fantastic” and “Elle” did a wonderful job in portraying the contrasts with Jacqueline Kennedy when she was the first lady and the afterwards. The lighting and the amount of camera movements were very well executed and they were established in a very good way.
The Score composed by Mica Levi was engaging from the beginning to the end and the use of the music cues worked at all times specially in the third act finale of the film which was astonishing.
The relationship of Jackie Kennedy with Camelot of King Arthur is one of the trademarks of the picture and I love the way it was put and relationship that she had when she was in the White House and afterwards when she is isolated in her Massachussets, home.
“Jackie” is without a doubt one of the biggest surprises of this year and I highly recommended for the brilliant direction of Pablo Larraín, the screenplay and the performance by Natalie Portman which again she delivered and is a blessing to see this talented actress portraying an historical and iconic figure in American Culture.