Noah Oppenheim, the screenwriter of Jackie, says that even though the movie uses dramatic license for the sake of the emotional portrait of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, they have not done anything that is “counter factual — that we know for a fact didn’t happen or sort of muddles the record.”
The movie is elevated by the astonishing performance of Natalie Portman, who’s considered a frontrunner in this year’s Best Actress Oscar race.
Oppenheim is the executive in charge of NBC’s “Today,” but he wrote the screenplay six years ago, before he had that job.
“We are not making a documentary; we are making a dramatic film,” he told Variety’s “PopPolitics.” “That is part of our job, to use our creativity to fill in blanks in the historic record and give people an emotional insight into the characters and the events. If you want just the facts and the chronology, there are much better genres than dramatic film to convey those things.”
The personal nature of Jackie separates it from other movie portrayals of her. The new film focuses on the events surrounding John F. Kennedy’s assassination, when she at once was dealing with grief and trauma but also planning her husband’s funeral and burnishing his legacy.
Several scenes show Jackie having conversations with a priest about the reasons for the tragic events, the purpose of life and faith, and the role of God.
These scenes were based on letters that Jacqueline Kennedy exchanged with priests during the months and year following the assassination, Oppenheim says.
