Jackie, starring Natalie Portman, was one of the major (few?) acquisitions at TIFF this year. Joanna screened and reviewed it at the festival and she enjoyed it. The film was sold to Fox Searchlight which is also distributing The Birth Of A Nation. Perhaps they needed another property to build an Oscar campaign around. In Toronto, the only footage that was released was a clip of Natalie Portman talking really breathily about how she wanted JFK’s funeral to proceed.
After I saw it, I emailed Joanna, who loves Natalie and Jackie, like, what’s with that voice? Is that really how Jacqueline Kennedy spoke? I’ve seen archived interviews that she did. I don’t remember it sounding like that. I’m not a Jackie expert but the way Natalie’s doing her voice is distracting to me, almost funny. Is that what this is? Camp?
Clearly I don’t know sh-t because people are super jizzy about this performance and expecting her to contend for another Oscar. A proper trailer has just come out and this is a much better introduction to the film than the above scene that they released first. Definitely campy, like almost Sunset Boulevard campy.
I have to admit, though, I feel a little differently about Jacqueline Kennedy having read that profile of her and her sister Lee Radziwill in Vanity Fair earlier this year. They were supposed to be so close. Jackie, as you know, was very wealthy at the time of her death. Lee is not wealthy – the way the piece is written, I took it to mean that she lives off the generosity of others and doesn’t own her own home. And Jackie left her nothing in her will.
