Midway through the NBC miniseries "A Woman Named Jackie," there's a scene of President and Mrs. Kennedy taking off in a helicopter from the White House grounds.
The copter rises majestically behind a large, white mansion that's supposed to be the White House - but obviously isn't. Like much of this miniseries, it just doesn't make any sense.Like much of this miniseries, it's an insult to the viewers' intelligence.
Loaded with historical inaccuracies and outright fiction, "Jackie" is television's latest attempt to remake history as soap opera. And in the process, it manages to take the fascinating and controversial life of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis and make it dull and disjointed.
(The miniseries airs Sunday, Monday and Tuesday at 8 p.m. on Ch. 2.)
Allegedly based on C. David Heymann's book of the same name, it looks more like the book was run through the wash cycle several times before it ended up on TV.
Heymann's version of Jackie's life is less than flattering, to put it mildly. He portrays her as a scheming, money-hungry woman who cared more about clothes and interior decorating than she did about her husbands.
Hayman goes so far as to state that when JFK was assassinated, Jackie's first thought was to escape the limousine to save herself.
But you don't see much of this in the miniseries. Jackie somehow manages to come off, well, perhaps not saintly, but as a wonderful and misunderstood woman.
Whatever the historical accuracy of Hayman's book, it is certainly a great deal more entertaining than this six-hour turkey.
(And if you've ever wondered exactly how long a six-hour TV miniseries really is, taking out the repetition of the opening and closing credits, the recaps at the beginning of Part 2 and Part 3 and the commercials, this one runs a total of 3 hours, 42 minutes and 38 seconds.)
As to the cast, Irish actress Roma Downey, a veteran of daytime's "One Life to Live" has the title role. She approximates Jackie's breathless little voice - at least some of the time - but otherwise she could have been Pam Ewing or Krystal Carrington from a nighttime soap.
Stephen Collins, who plays JFK, insists he spent hours listening to and viewing tapes of Kennedy - but still only manages to remember his Boston accent from time to time.
And Joss Ackland as Aristotle Onassis is little more than a cartoon character.
Of course, this latest production begs the question - do we really need another TV movie about the Kennedys? To name just a few, we've had "The Kennedys of Massachussetts," "Young Joe - The Forgotten Kennedy" and even "Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy," which starred Jaclyn Smith in the title role.
And most offensive is that tired old docudrama trick of presenting conjecture and outright fiction as fact. "Jackie" purports to recreate private moments to which there were no witnesses and no corroboration. Among these flights of fancy:
- Joe Kennedy Sr. discussing a $1 million payment to Jackie to keep her from divorcing JFK in the late '50s. (A popular but completely unsubstantiated rumor.)
- Jackie answering a telephone call from Marilyn Monroe and offering to divorce JFK if Monroe agreed to marry him and live in the White House.
- Ted Kennedy negotiating Jackie's marriage to Aristotle Onassis as a business deal.
Oh, the producers will tell you that they've faithfully recreated literally hundreds of Jackie's dresses. But it might have been nice if they'd paid just a little bit of attention to historical accuracy.
"A Woman Named Jackie" also bounces from scene to scene, year to year with such confusing rapidity that what remains is a shallow, confusing skimming of a fascinating life.
The miniseries is so confusing even the NBC publicity crew couldn't figure it out. The network's own P.R. department released a chronology of events that included this item: January 1975, Jackie and Onassis are divorced.
Jackie and Ari were never divorced - she was still married to him when he died later that year.
Toss in a tasteless (and historically inaccurate) recreation of JFK's assassination and "Jackie" becomes a burden on viewers.
If you want to be entertained by Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis' life, read Heymann's book.
If you want to be entertained by television programming, avoid the miniseries "A Woman Named Jackie."