Jackie - Movie Review

Who's In It?

Billy Crudrup, John Hurt, Peter Sarsgaard, and Natalie Portman


What's It About?

After JFK's assassination, Jackie Kennedy fights with grief and the presidential cabinet to organise his funeral, all told through the first interview with the First Lady that looked into their relationship.

Any Good?

The film itself is paced really awkwardly at first, cutting from the 'current', to interview to tv segments from months before, to the lead-up, assassination, and funeral - and it takes a while for the timeline to settle.

Natalie Portman is AMAZING as Jackie, nomination and maybe even Oscar winning. She has a slightly ditsy type of voice, which is totally deceiving as she is talking down to the head generals of the American army and head of CIA. On the other side, Caspar Phillipson in his occasional appearances as JFK is so striking it's weird.  The first time he appears beside Jackie and smiles Ma beside me said "jeeeesus", and I just said "yep". The way he looks, moves, and ESPECIALLY smiles is spot on, even if they don't let him speak.

Peter Sarsgaard is great as Bobby Kennedy too, being the straight by the book voice to Jackie as she plans the funeral, and making sure the presidential cabinet listen and respect the fact that his brother died, and he along with Jackie are seriously hurt.

The film is a slow burner mostly, but is grizzly when it comes to any scene with JFK's assassination. The one problem I had with it was the music, it was all incredibly out of place and disjointed - I think someone got a royalty-free song pack for Christmas and had a field day with it.

Rating: 

A Monster Calls - Movie Review!

Who's In It?

Lewis MacDougall, Felicity Jones, Liam Neeson, and Sigourney Weaver


What's It About?

As a boy's mother is dying of cancer, a giant tree monster promises him help if he listens to three tails, and tells the monster the fourth.

Any Good?

I think my enjoyment of the film depended on the fact I had context to really show it's heart; the book and film were written by Patrick Ness, finished from the first chapter written by Siobhan Dowd before she died of cancer.

Without context, I found that the conversations were INCREDIBLY rushed. I loved how Liam Neeson was written and voice-acted, but when he says sentences that are at most 5 words long it feels like a bit of a wasted opportunity. 

I did really enjoy most of the performances, with Felicity Jones giving hope to Rogue One and Liam Neeson as the awesome monster - but AGAIN with the fantastic child actor in Lewis McDougall, is it their year or something? I did feel let down by Sigourney Weaver though - it was like she was focusing so hard on her accent that her performance fell a bit flat.

The effects were impressive with the animation for the monster being FANTASTIC, with his face mapped perfectly and Liam Neeson's mo-cap of sitting down actually looked like an old monster doing it.

While I did find the film was a bit flat with it's short dialogue, the performances really pushed it forward and context helped it along even more so. While I thought the film was decent, it REALLY made me want to read the book and see what the dialogue is like without being Hollywood-ified.

Rating: