It's a beautiful movie on a technical level and Natalie Portman gives a strong performance but it left me completely cold. Portman is good but this is far from career-best work - it doesn't even touch her performances in Black Swan or Closer for example. I also found Peter Sarsgaard rather bad. It moves at an incredibly languid pace and more closely resembles an art house film than a conventional biopic. B-

It's a movie that's at war with itself. The Oscar-bait interview segments with Billy Crudup distract from the more fly-on-the-wall moments with Jackie dealing with the aftermath of Kennedy's assassination.

Portman is great, but the movie never gels into something special, even though all the pieces are there. B-

The framing device was weird - it was almost like they were trying to make this movie mainstream-accessible by having those scenes when it really isn't at all.

The score of the film is honestly the best part.

Splendid cinematography and a terrific performance by Portman can't change that this feels so incredibly cold and detached. You see Jackie suffering in the aftermath of Kennedy's assassination, but I never understood why the fuck I should care as a viewer. It is clinical in its approach.

In some ways, Jackie is a hard movie to love, but Natalie Portman's performance is not. This is a deeper level, shattering performance that builds on the work she has done in movies like Black Swan. It took me a few minutes to warm up to her characterization, but by the end, it's clear that this is a perfectly calibrated, well modulated portrayal of raw grief. Not sure I would give her a second Oscar for this, but she should certainly be in the running. I liked, but did not love, the rest of the film. It's one that is easier for me to admire than go gaga for, but Portman's searing, powerful work in the lead role easily stands out. B+

This is the most forgettable movie of awards season, and I saw it only a week ago. Everything else in contention is so much better.

You might not like it and I sure as hell didn't love it, but forgettable, it is not.

thompsoncory is threatened by the fact Portman's performance could take the Oscar from Emma Stone.

I think this is definitely Portman at her finest. The film around her is a little hard to be invested in apart from the way the assassination was depicted but I didn't think it was bad.

After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Jacqueline Kennedy must, as a widowed first lady, plan his elaborate Washington, D.C. funeral and participate in the transfer of the White House to Lyndon B. Johnson while also quietly mourning a man who was her (unfaithful) husband, as well as the adoring father of her two living children. An almost Gothic, often non-chronological symphony of memories, moments, and moods rather than a traditional biography, this film hones in on the point where one’s public duty and private life intersect. As envisioned here, Mrs. Kennedy is a complicated figure profoundly aware of history’s judgment, the importance of symbolism in American culture, and the power of the media even as her life is in violent flux. She is inhabited by Natalie Portman in her finest performance to date; the Academy Award winner perfectly captures her subject’s legendary poise and almost otherworldly Mid-Atlantic accent while also infusing her with very recognizable veins of anger, despair, self-doubt, and vanity.

A

Easy candidate for overrated Oscar film of the year. Portman is fine but the screenplay is fairly weak here becoming fairly repetitive and the film shies away from much more gripping material only stated in quick one sentence references.

Portman is great but everyone calling the film cold, detached, etc... hit the nail on the head. It's just hard to really care and it moves at such a glacial pace.

This is possibly the least conventional biopic I've ever seen. I thought it was very interesting and I loved the visual style, and Portman seems to have nailed Jackie O. My friend fell asleep and hated it. It's a weird, artsy film, but it's certainly worth a watch.

B

Jackie

I saw this yesterday at the cinema. I know, I know. China and their ridiculously late release schedule!

Well, anyway, it wasn't bad, but certainly not award-worthy. Portman, who if I remember correctly was the main focus for ballot voters last year, wasn't overly impressive. She never transcended "Portman playing JFK's wife", though she obviously put the effort in. That much was clear. More than can be said for Sarsgaard, who is one of the most overrated actors working today. While I believe the film was told from the correct viewpoint, it was never entirely engaging, and only sparked my interest in the dozen or so interview scenes with Billy Crudup's character. The rest, while not boring, was less engaging since we all know the story. The film sort of does, but also shies away from showing full-on gore. It wanted to, but it was self-aware [of its potential awards buzz], so we're left with bloodied clothes, fast edits so as you don't actually see anything, and blood pouring down Portman's back in the shower. The film is too shallow as a study into the psyche of a post-assassination Jackie Kennedy (though I will say that for someone like me who hasn't the foggiest about US political figures, the film does provide adequate insight into the type of women she maybe was), and seems reluctant to show the death and ensuing furore, which doesn't leave much left besides the impeccable costuming, grainy 60s cinematography, and a few apt lines from John Hurt.

B-