Shooting blanks

JACKIE Direction: Pablo Larrain Actors: Natalie Portman, Billy Crudup Rating:

Celebrated Chilean director Pablo Larrian makes an inauspicious transition to Hollywood with the first Englishlanguage film of his career.

Not nearly as involving as it aspires to be, Jackie is a portrait of the former First Lady and 1960s style icon in the aftermath of the assassination of her husband, President John F Kennedy in November 1963.

Failing to convey a sense of immediacy, the non-linear narrative begins with a hackneyed framing device. Barely a week after JKF’s murder, his widow (Portman) summons a journalist (Crudup) to her Massachusetts mansion for an exclusive one-onone interview.

No longer the ingénue she was during her early days at the White House, Mrs Kennedy now comes across as a shrewd manipulator of the media. Determined to ensure that her late husband’s legacy will be forever enshrined in the nation’s psyche, she even emphasises his love of the popular Broadway musical Camelot. With the sudden death of her white knight, the privileged ‘princess’ is left with memories of the brief shining moments they shared in their fairy-tale kingdom. Not surprisingly, the heartbroken celebrity withdraws from public view following the elaborate state funeral which she insisted her husband deserved.

Utilising a battery of tight close-ups, Larrian fails to fully capture Jackie’s loneliness and torment in the wake of the tragedy. A textbook Oscar contender, Natalie Portman delivers a masterclass in BAD acting. The overbearing background music score by the British composer Mica Levi is incongruous.

Despite some impressive visual flourishes the muchhyped Jackie is a big let-down.