Natalie Portman as Jackie Is a Performance That Needs to Be Seen to Be Believed

It’s one thing to look at pictures of Natalie Portman’s Jackie Kennedy or to watch the trailers, most of which depict how gorgeous the Pablo Larrain film is to look at. What you don’t see, what you must see, is Portman as the famous First Lady we thought we knew. I was not alive during the reign of Camelot in the White House, but you’d have to living in a swamp somewhere in Trump’s America not to know who she was. Jackie Kennedy was a legend. She didn’t look like anyone else. She didn’t sound like anyone else. She was not like anyone at the time. It was not a feminist country yet (and last Tuesday made clear it still isn’t) and women in politics were expected to be demure, classy, and well-educated for starters. Jackie probably set the gold standard for the modern First Lady and it could be argued that Michelle Obama continued it. America was never ready for, nor did it ever seem to want, Hillary Clinton’s brand of First Lady – partly because Bill seemed so much like Jack, but Hillary could not be further from Jackie.

I expected Portman to be good. The reviews and accolades already told me that. What I didn’t expect was how exacting, how specific, and how thorough of a character study it is. Portman has done more than research. She has managed to unearth all of the different sides of Jackie’s personality. Her private side which had directives that could not be argued with, her public side that required a giddy, bubbly wife. Her maternal side, caring for and worrying about her babies. Her side as a rejected woman, whose husband had been tasting the fruits of being the most powerful, charismatic man in the world. The side that is most important, especially now, is her role as a preservationist and historian.

Jackie Kennedy helped pass a law whereby everything brought into the White House is either kept as part of its permanent collection or put in the Smithsonian. But the most important way she helped preserve and protect the country was how she held it together and rewrote the narrative of her husband’s assassination. That element, the element that killed JFK, is now in power in America. Jackie Kennedy would be horrified.

Portman’s Jackie is astonishing and easily one of the best performances of the year. The way she drifts in and out of the different faces and different personas Jackie, and any woman in politics, must deliver is the work of a gifted, intelligent, observant actress.

In terms of the Best Actress race, this year is reminiscent of 1998 when Cate Blanchett starred as Elizabeth and competed against Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love. There is a similar dynamic going on with Jackie vs. La La Land, and in fact Jackie is not unlike Elizabeth in many ways. Both are directed by artists and their rendering of the biographical figure is non-traditional. At the same time La La Land is a love story – a tragic one in many ways that squeezes and tugs at your heart the same way Shakespeare in Love did. Both feature an ambitious young woman – who wants to act, come to think of it. La La Land is likely to win Best Picture, as Shakespeare in Love did (though it did not win Best Director, worth noting).

Unlike Shakespeare in Love, which was a surprise Best Picture winner that came out of nowhere and beat Saving Private Ryan, La La Land has been thought of as the frontrunner so the element of that kind of surprise has been taken off the table, but there is no doubt that the thing that makes both films truly great is the central female performance that one cannot help but fall hard for. It is the falling in love that could drive Emma Stone to the win, even in a year as competitive as this.

Natalie Portman won already for Black Swan, which immediately cuts her chances in half. If she’s up against Annette Bening, who hasn’t won and is overdue, Academy members might be more inclined to award Bening. I suspect that as time wears on the conversation will surround Portman’s performance as it did Blanchett’s and Stone will take some heat if she does win, just like Paltrow did. Still, three actresses really do stand a chance of winning the Oscar here. It’s such a competitive year that even choosing or predicting five nominees is near impossible.

While watching Jackie, I was struck and horrified that we now have such a strange First Lady about to move into the White House. If we all thought moving in the first female president and her former husband as First Dude would have been strange, a former Slovenian model who has absolutely nothing of substance to say is a striking contrast to those who came before her. And perhaps that was the point: just stand there and look pretty. We’re not just going to down your female candidate but we’re going to install a Stepford Wife to show you what we think about women’s roles in government and in our lives. Watching Jackie shows the destructive nature of the darker corners of America, the violence that runs through its veins, poisoned by our own history. A psycho with a gun is so hard for people to believe so they’ve decided, instead, to believe bigger forces had Kennedy killed. The film Jackie is a reminder of a better America, but one that may be gone forever. [UPDATE FOR THOSE WHO ALWAYS THINK THE WORST OF PEOPLE AND HAVE TO HAVE THINGS SPELLED OUT LITERALLY: What Jackie represents, the movie, is the Obama ideal of a smarter, more evolved America – which means we have standards for whom we put in the White House and we care a lot about the civil rights of others – to even have someone as a leader who cares at all about those things is why Jackie reminds us of now that Trump is our president. < <<-----DOES THAT EXPLAIN IT FOR YOU? OR DO YOU NEED TO PUT ME ON A STICK AND SET FLAME TO THE WITCH??!!]

Natalie Portman brings to life Jackie’s fierce intelligence, curious mind, complicated personality, and gives us a second chance to know her and remember her and celebrate her. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a performance quite like this one.

In introducing Ms. Portman last night Pablo Larraine said, “and here she is, you’ll be watching her for the next 90 minutes, our queen, Natalie Portman.” I do not know whether she’ll win the Oscar or not but I don’t think anyone would argue with her status as queen. There is nothing left but to bow down.