• About Us
  • Sasha Stone
  • Editor Ryan Adams
  • Clarence Moye
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Awardsdaily - The Oscars, the Films and everything in between.
  • Home
  • Oscar Ballot download
  • Good As Gold
  • AD TV
  • Podcasts
  • Interviews
  • All News
  • Home
  • Oscar Ballot download
  • Good As Gold
  • AD TV
  • Podcasts
  • Interviews
  • All News
No Result
View All Result
Awardsdaily - The Oscars, the Films and everything in between.
No Result
View All Result

At NYFF, Natalie Portman in Heartbreaking, Historic “Jackie”

by Stephen Holt
October 12, 2016
in BEST ACTRESS, Film Festivals, News, NYFF
254
At NYFF, Natalie Portman in Heartbreaking, Historic “Jackie”

Natalie Portman gives one of the finest performances I have ever seen in the heartbreaking, historic “Jackie.” After the acclaim at Venice and Toronto, the New York Film Festival crammed it into their crowded schedule as a Special Event and I’m grateful they did.

With forthright simplicity, “Jackie” is powerful beyond belief. It hit me so profoundly, by the end I could barely walk or stand up, my glasses stained with tears.

Chilean director Pablo Lorrain, who also has “Neruda” at the NYFF this year, takes us back to the days before and immediately following after the terrible tragedy of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Lorrain doesn’t intend to let us off the hook easy. Nor does Natalie Portman.

The film is entirely focused on Jacqueline Kennedy. We see and hear everything from her point of view, whether we want to or not. Noah Oppenheim, who won the prize for Best Screenplay in Venice, fills in the blanks of those fateful days quite completely with a story that is all too familiar to every American. We may think we know it, but we don’t.

Jackie is interviewed by a journalist (Billy Crudup) who is simply called “The Reporter.” Jackie bluntly asks him if he “wants to know what the bullet sounded like when it hit Jack’s head.” The reporter demurs, but continues his blunt questions. Jackie answers them just as bluntly. It’s surreal to see them so composed, tranquil, but adversarial, months after the assassination.

The horrific centerpiece of the film is that bloody event. “I didn’t know what has happening. I could’ve protected him.” But of course, she couldn’t have. Lorrain puts us in the car beside Jackie as she tries to “hold Jack’s head together.” She describes his brains, which lay in the lap of the pink Chanel suit she so famously wore. “They were pink, not white.”

Lorrain never flinches from showing us these horrifying images, though he doesn’t dwell on them. But he keeps returning to that moment. As he must, as we all must.

We witness Jackie’s incredible strength and resilience as she tries to maintain composure. She takes charge of official obligations and gracefully handles details of making funeral arrangements — which seems, in the state she was in, a super-human feat.

Portman fulfills every expectation, then goes beyond, as she nails every precise emotion imaginable in this unimaginable tragedy. She never loses her grasp on Jackie’s renowned poise, refinement and her perfectly inflected voice. And she never shies away from the horrors she is called upon to witness. I cannot praise her enough. She was astonishing. Revealing depths that one could never guess that she possessed, her performance is one for the ages, certain to land her another Oscar nomination.

Peter Sarsgaard, who has never been Oscar-nominated for any of the fine film work he’s done till now, may finally get a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his tremendous portrayal of the slain president’s younger brother Bobby — himself destined to be gunned down just five years later. He carries an aura of prescient doom on his broad shoulders.

Sarsgaard’s Robert Kennedy is a steely tower of strength for the bereft Jackie. The two of them here do the finest work of their careers.

Greta Gerwig is also on hand, blending seamlessly into the remarkable supporting role of Nancy Tuckerman, Jackie’s personal assistant. Sarsgaard and Gerwig portray an effective protective flank around the ready-to-crumble Jackie. As a devout Catholic, Jackie faith is shaken by her husband’s brutal murder, and she turns to an Irish priest, John Hurt, for solace. In scene after scene we see how a small intimate circle helped keep the nation’s First Family from falling apart.

Some may object that Jackie is shown chain smoking, but in real life she did. She was just never photographed with a cigarette. There’s also a brief sequence of the widow trying to numb her pain with pills and alcohol, listening to Richard Burton singing “Camelot.” But any resistance to these entirely plausible moments of frailty will dissolve in heartbreaking compassion when Jackie has to explain to little Caroline and John-John that the father that they loved is never coming back.

If we ever needed more proof, “Jackie” shows Jacqukine Kenndy to be just as human as you or I, and also one of the greatest of American heroines.

I’m still shaking from this film, hours later. And of course, none of us can avoid being reminded where we were that November when we heard the terrible news. I was in gym class, changing in a locker room. School let out immediately, and I rode home by bus across the Bronx, overcome with immense sadness. Two African-Americans, a man and a woman, rode the same bus that afternoon. I recall the man saying simply, “They shot him.”

“Jackie” will bring you to tears, and then bring applause for the artistry of all involved.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • WhatsApp
  • Print
Tags: JackieNatalie PortmanNew York Film FestivalPablo Lorrain
Stephen Holt

Stephen Holt

Next Post

Featurette for Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

Sign up for Awards Daily's Breaking News

* indicates required

‘Mare’ Creator/Writer Ingelsby Puts Characters Front and Center

mare

(Photo: HBO)

by Clarence Moye
April 14, 2021
0

Costume Design Guild Winners

First Look at Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman’s Transformative Work in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020): Viola Davis as Ma Rainey. Cr. David Lee / Netflix

by Sasha Stone
April 13, 2021
3

What Do the Oscars Mean to You?

What Do the Oscars Mean to You?
by Sasha Stone
April 13, 2021
92

Farah Nabulsi Reveals the Dangerous Realities Palestinians Face in ‘The Present’

Farah Nabulsi Reveals the Dangerous Realities Palestinians Face in ‘The Present’
by Joey Moser
April 13, 2021
0

How Nominated Short ‘White Eye’ is Director Tomer Shushan’s Redemption

Shorts: ‘White Eye’ Asks Who Is the Real Bicycle Thief
by Joey Moser
April 13, 2021
1

‘Them:’ Does Amazon’s Anthology Series Go Too Far?

Them

(Photo: Amazon)

by Clarence Moye
April 12, 2021
8

Contest! ACE Eddie (Editors) and ASC (Cinematographers) Awards Preview

Contest! ACE Eddie (Editors) and ASC (Cinematographers) Awards Preview
by Sasha Stone
April 12, 2021
9

Contest Winners!

Contest Winners!
by Sasha Stone
April 12, 2021
0

Halle Berry, Brad Pitt Among Oscar Presenters for 93rd Academy Awards

Halle Berry, Brad Pitt Among Oscar Presenters for 93rd Academy Awards
by Sasha Stone
April 12, 2021
13

Suzanne Guacci: Telling Stories for the Underrepresented

Suzanne Guacci: Telling Stories for the Underrepresented
by Frank J. Avella
April 12, 2021
0

Oscar Podcast Quickie – Best Actress

Oscar Podcast Post Globes, SAG Awards Dump

Abstract starburst, sunburst graphic. Converging, radiating lines.

by Sasha Stone
April 12, 2021
91

Dominic Lewis On Scoring Disney’s ‘Ducktales’ Reboot

Dominic Lewis On Scoring Disney’s ‘Ducktales’ Reboot

DUCKTALES - "WOO-OO!" (Disney XD) HUEY, WEBBY VANDERQUACK, DEWEY, LOUIE

by Ben Morris
April 12, 2021
0

AwardsDaily’s 21st Annual Predict the Oscars Contest

AwardsDaily’s 21st Annual Predict the Oscars Contest
by Sasha Stone
April 11, 2021
15

Join us Facebook

AwardsDaily Crew

  • About Us
  • Sasha Stone
  • Editor Ryan Adams
  • Clarence Moye
  • Contact Us

ADTV Crew

  • ADTV Home
  • Megan McLachlan, Co-Editor
  • Clarence Moye, Co-Editor
  • Jalal Haddad, Senior Contributor
  • Joey Moser, Senior Contributor
  • Shadan Larki
  • Ben Morris
  • David Phillips
  • Contact
  • About Us
  • Advertising on Awards Daily

© 1999-2021 AwardsDaily.com

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Oscar Ballot download
  • Good As Gold
  • AD TV
  • Podcasts
  • Interviews
  • All News

© 1999-2021 AwardsDaily.com