First Ladies On Film is a pretty small entry in the movie encyclopedia, but Natalie Portman’s Jacqueline Kennedy surely shoots to the top of the heap because they are so rarely more than bit-parts in biopics of their husbands. We tend to remember the presidents and forget who played their mostly blameless wives, even though the faintly holy aura wafting around this nebulous office/non-job tends to suffuse both the casting process and the portrayals themselves. That usually means a big stage name or character player worthy of the role. Witness the women who have played Lady Bird Johnson: Felicity Huffman in Path To War (opposite Michael Gambon’s LBJ); Melissa Leo in HBO’s All The Way (Brian Cranston), and Jennifer Jason Leigh (with Woody Harrelson) in the upcoming LBJ; all serious, heavy-rep players, in keeping with the office. In Jackie, Lady Bird is played, opposite John Carroll Lynch’s LBJ, by Beth Grant, best known as the “I got the cancer!” lady from No Country For Old Men.
The Jackies, however, have mostly remained in the shadows in the equivalent movies about JFK, since he was the glamour-boy prez at the centre of public events that enhanced his reputation and squalid private assignations that later besmirched it. As such, I struggled to recall who played Jackie opposite Martin Sheen in the Kennedy TV biopic of 1983 (it was Blair Brown), and was surprised to learn she’d previously been played by actors as varied as Katie Holmes (The Kennedys miniseries), Kat Steffens in Parkland, and Jaclyn Smith on TV in the 80s.
All this leaves the field clear for Portman, who does an excellent job of embodying Jackie without imitating her. She finds a comfortable place inside that airy Minnie Mouse voice we remember from the real Jackie’s White House TV tour (though Jackie was no airhead). The plot itself concentrates on the weeks between the assassination itself and her Life interview with champion presidential myth-maker, journalist Theodore H White (Billy Crudup), in which she consolidates the “Camelot” lore. It’s a great showcase for Portman, allowing her to roam from the emotionally shattered, blood-covered pink-suit Jackie of 22 November to the shrewd, hard-nosed interviewee who expertly pushes Ted White around. The assassination itself, meanwhile – all exploding skull and massive gaping head wound – is more shockingly rendered than I’ve ever seen it, manipulatively positioned as the climax.
Other than that, JFK himself is barely in shot. The most interesting reversal here? For what must be the first time ever, the president has been First-Ladied out of the movie.
Jackie is in UK cinemas from Friday 20 January
