Brief shining

Jackie

Crit

Honestly don't know whether to call this a good film (though I'm pretty sure it's not a great one), but Natalie Portman's performance of the just-widowed title character--in a constant fog and at the same time scrupulously in control of every word she subsequently declares off the record to a reporter or nonconfessional to her priest--should produce her 3rd Oscar nomination, though probably not her 2nd win.

Trailers

• A United Kingdom--I want to believe that this based-on-actual-events film about a hereditary African king marrying a white Englishwoman despite everything will be less cheaply melodramatic than the trailer suggests.
• Gifted--Likewise, want to believe that this story of a well-meaning uncle's struggle to raise his orphaned niece despite everything will be less squishily sentimental than the trailer suggests.
• Silence--Scorsese, religious faith, yes.