For all the films that have been made about JFK, his presidency, his assassination, and the aftermath and legacy, relatively little attention has been paid to Jacqueline Kennedy. Pablo Larrain’s haunting Jackie goes a long way to address that shortage.

Jackie is playing now. You won’t find a better acting job than seen in its star Natalie Portman. My review is at Eyes Wide Open:

Watching Natalie Portman inhabit Jacqueline Kennedy in Pablo Larrain’s post-assassination fugue piece Jackie is as wrenching and unforgettable as the film itself. Portman’s ability to live the role comes not just from acutely inhabiting Jackie’s particularly affected mid-Atlantic tones and breathy pauses. She plays the First Lady as strenuously poised, to be sure. That was the Jackie the country was familiar with. But Portman threads her performance with the elements country wasn’t allowed to see in the aftermath of John F. Kennedy’s assassination: Her glassy shock at the killing itself, the terror and fury that boiled up behind the shock, and the steel-tempered force of will that clamped everything back together…

Here’s the trailer: