7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Following the assassination of her husband, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy fights through grief and trauma to regain her faith, console her children, and define her husband's historic legacy.
Starring: Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup, John HurtDrama | 100% |
Biography | 56% |
History | 15% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.66:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
English SDH, French, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
UV digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
The horror of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 was ameliorated, as much as anything like that can be ameliorated, by the steely resolve and incredible reserve of his widow, then of course known as Jacqueline Kennedy (Natalie Portman). Jackie’s grace under imaginable pressure somehow served as a model to countless Americans (and global citizens, in fact) that “we” were going to make it through this tragedy, somehow. The remarkable thing about this sad chapter in the United States’ often tempestuous history is that Jackie had been seen as a rather “soft” figure up to this moment, an undeniably stylish and intelligent woman who nonetheless spoke in a near whisper a lot of the time and who didn’t seem especially fond of being in any kind of spotlight. That reticence about revealing herself is at full play in Jackie, which uses the foundation of Jacqueline Kennedy’s now famous post-assassination Life Magazine interview to set up what amounts to almost a deconstruction of a traditional “biopic”. An unnamed Journalist (Billy Crudup), obviously modeled on Theodore H. White, arrives at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port a short while after the killing, interviewing Jackie for what will be her first public comments about anything, let alone the horrifying public execution of her husband, since November 22. While the film’s structure purposely shuffles and skews events non-chronologically, the bulk of the film’s narrative deals with the immediate aftermath of the death, with Jackie handling everything from funeral arrangements to informing her two very young children that their father has had to “go to heaven” (as the film has her term it).
Jackie is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.66:1. There are a couple of perhaps subliminal "aspects" (including ratio) to Jackie that evoke a vintage feeling. The 1.66:1 aspect ratio is part of that (the interstitials supposedly documenting the CBS special are closer to Academy Ratio, as can be seen in a couple of the screenshots accompanying this review), but this entry was shot on 16mm (Super 16), something that was done perhaps to help the (relatively little) archival footage of things like the State Funeral blend in more seamlessly, or perhaps simply to give an "old time" or even newsreel feel to things. The palette has also been toyed with variously, with some sequences, like the bright autumn outdoor shots in Dallas, resonating quite vividly and accurately, and others, notably some of the Hyannis Port interview segments, skewed considerably cooler, with a look that almost resembles slightly faded color home movies. The smaller format means detail and especially fine detail probably aren't quite at the levels that digital capture would have afforded, but things like the pill on Jackie's iconic pink suit are precise looking. The increased graininess and fuzziness of the 16mm source leads to some yellow chunkiness quite a bit of the time and some compression hurdles are encountered at various moments (see screenshot 14, among other examples). With an understanding of the source format, this is generally an appealing if occasionally slightly problematic presentation.
Jackie's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track provides good support for Mica Levi's Academy Award nominated string drenched score, but surround activity is somewhat limited, relegated to elements like the ambient environmental sounds when the film ventures out of doors or in some of the more crowded scenes, like the arrival of the Kennedys to a boisterous crowd in Dallas. Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly on this problem free track.
Natalie Portman, as elegantly beautiful as she undeniably is, doesn't really resemble Jacqueline Kennedy all that much, but she delivers a sterling performance here, capturing Kennedy's unforgettable speech patterns and creating a totally believable "character" throughout the film. Some of the sidebars Jackie gets in to are arguably needlessly melodramatic (after all, the film's basic subject matter is pretty melodramatic on its face), but Noah Oppenheim's screenplay is a fascinating deconstruction of traditional biopic tropes. The film boasts a really interesting aesthetic courtesy of its 16mm source format, and Mica Levi's score is also a real standout. Highly recommended.
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