'Jackie' Trailer: Natalie Portman Returns to Camelot

Jackie, in theaters Dec. 2, tells the story of an American icon, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. In turn, the Jackie Kennedy we see on screen, played by Natalie Portman, is telling her own story to the American people, trying to establish the legacy that her late husband, John F. Kennedy, would have wanted. “People like to believe in fairy tales,” she says. “I believe that the characters we read about on the page end up being more real than the men who stand beside us.”

Related: How Natalie Portman Got Into Character as Jackie Kennedy

In the film’s new trailer (watch it above), we see how JFK’s grieving widow pushed through her own pain in order to help heal the country after the assassination. In one devastating moment, Jackie cries as she describes her attempts to speak to her dying husband. In another, she wonders how much of her own picture-perfect life in the White House was genuine. “I lost Jack somewhere. What was real? What was performance?” she asks. Beatific images of the Kennedy children appear alongside shocking reminders of the violence Jackie witnessed, like a shot of her attempting to remove blood-soaked pantyhose. Like the film itself (which generated strong buzz at film festivals), the trailer is focused tightly on Portman, who is considered an extremely strong contender for an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

‘Jackie’: Watch the previously released trailer: