Jackie, Ethel, Joan: The Women of Camelot (2001)

I love this movie so much

Load of rubbish!!

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Wow! I can't recall exactly the first time I saw this Mini but I finally caught it in time to tape it one day a couple of years ago and I watch it all the time. Jill, Lauren and Leslie hit the nail on the head with their performances as Jackie, Ethel and Joan. Absolutely amazing.I've got to say, at certain points in the story I had to get up and go outside and walk around, or stop the tape and turn on the news to remind myself that I was in Scottsville and not Washington or Hyannis Port! HA! (spoiler) The scene when Jack is assassinated kills me. Just breaks my heart in two. In every movie or mini about the Kennedy's that scene always makes me cry. This particular mini made me cry the hardest. (With "A Woman Named Jackie" I just sat and stared. Then when it was all over, I started to cry.) I remember sitting on the edge of my bed one night watching that scene and when she took off her ring and it wouldn't go on, oh I cried and cried. The funeral is so beautiful. Every time I see it I feel like if I move a muscle or do anything that will take me away from the screen or anything like that that I am disrespecting President Kennedy and his legacy.This is one of the best in my opinion. Lauren Holly surprised me with her acting. Usually when I heard her name I thought "Dumb and Dumber," you know? But now, I see her as a serious actress with A LOT of potential. Leslie was incredible as well. I'd seen her in "The Mirror Has Two Faces" and something else, I can't remember it at the moment, but with this film I was blown away. She got it right. And Jill, oh Jill, Jill, Jill! I am a Crossing Jordan FANATIC! I have it Season Passed on my TiVo so seeing her as Jackie Kennedy! WHOO! Talk about a 180! She was absolutely incredible. She looked GORGEOUS too! (spoiler) There is a line somewhere when they're remodeling the White House when she says "Oh I have terrible handwriting." That line, for some reason, runs through my head at least once a day. Don't ask why.All in all I'd give "Jackie, Ethel, Joan: The Women of Camelot" a 9, simply because I haven't seen a film yet that is a full 10. I'd say the only flaw....hmm....well, not seeing anything about Arabella, the first baby Jack and Jackie had, they acted as though she was never a part of the picture. But she was born, and died, around the time Jack was being elected to Senate, so I can understand it not being in this film. And maybe not seeing more of the assassination, the actual assassination. I did, however,(spoiler) really enjoy watching Leslie as Joan in that sequence. She did an amazing job with the whole panic look. Lauren was incredible. Playing the supportive Etthy. She was so great in that scene.Great film. Ab Fab! Loved it!

I was flipping through my telly and I stopped upon seeing Jill Hennessy in dated attire on the Hallmark Channel. After a few minutes I realized she was playing Jackie Kennedy and I kept watching... Lauron Holly popped up on screen soon after and I took a liking to the characters at once. The next day I watched the second/last part of the miniseries. I thought it was well acted and it gave depth to the Kennedy women (I haven't read the book) that I had not previously seen (except Jackie). I loved Jill Hennessy in it, we see a Jackie post-JFK. I cried my eyes out when JFK was shot.. Hennessy's best part of the series.The guy actors all seemed the same to me... they had that kind of "every-man" face... I guess that was the point. If you like seeing shows about strong women, you'll like this, but I didn't follow the historical accuracy of it, and I didn't get such a sense of 60-ies in it (prob coz the series spans over 30 years) except for the change of clothes. If you watch it with an open mind, ready to enjoy yourself, you'll like it, if you take it too seriously you might not.

I am most definitely one of the world's biggest Kennedy fans. I am sure that I own every series, movie, documentary about the Kennedy family (anyone who has a list of Kennedy movies please email me and make sure I have them all.) I finally got the opportunity to watch this 2001 mini series focusing on the Kennedy women, Jackie, Ethel and Joan and on a lesser extent Rose the matriarch.The mini series follows the lives closely of the Kennedy family for the better part of 3 decades from JFK's presidency to Ted's defunct run at the Presidency in 1980. However it follows the events of their lives from the perspective of the three wives and how it effected them and how they played a part in it.The movie jumps around a lot and it takes more than half of the time to really get a feel for the pace of the film and what it's aiming to do. The film aims to be less of entertainment than it is a chronicle, and recreation of the major events of the Kennedy family from the point of the women. What role they played, their personalities etc. The men have all been done to death but who has really shown the women? I know this is the first Kennedy film I ever saw that really went in depth into Joan Kennedy.The casting was done (in my opinion) in an attempt to capture the best possible most realistic looking person they could find. Director Larry Shaw really puts forth an incredible effort to recreate scenes and the look of famous pictures and events possibly better than any other I have scene. Although actor Daniel Kelly who played JFK doesn't look all that much like the late President, there are certain angles and shots used that are downright startling as to how much he looks like him. Add in the fact that they recreate the death scene of Bobby and use word for word speeches and announcements and also work to recreate news footage with the actors as opposed to the real people.Jill Hennesey is quite possibly the best Jackie I have ever seen. She portrays her brilliantly and looks a lot like her. She comes across as a strong, independent, woman and not the quiet laid back, always calm woman that she is often portrayed as in the past. I think Hennesey's Jackie is much more accurate. Leslie Stefanson gives a powerful portrayal as Joan Kennedy. Strong, yet afraid, withdrawn, stressed, and misunderstood. She was definitely a sore thumb to the Kennedy brood. The real brilliance here is Lauren Holly. She absolutely floored me as the rather harsh Ethel Kennedy. She is very brash and outgoing, loud and obnoxious and nails the voice. I thought for sure she would disappoint me but for certain this was the performance of Holly's career. The men were all well casted in particular Ted Kennedy played by Matt Letscher. Basically despite it's rather rapid time line and it's jumpy story this is one of the best recreations out there I have no doubt. It didn't get the critical acclaim that it should have. I am somewhat biased being I love all things Kennedy but I will forever have this one in my top favorites because of the performance of these women. I think they perhaps assumed too much when it came to their roles in certain situations but you have to assume to make things believable because none of us were there and I think Shaw did a decent job in his assumptions. I liked that he never focused on just one of the women which is easy to do being Jackie was really the forefront of the Kennedy women. Instead he took each women and showed the critical events in their lives and the lives of their men. Overall a great mini series. 9/10

Television mini-series are usually poor quality, and this is no exception. The acting is below average and therefore unconvincing. The domestic dramas are played out like 'Young and the Restless' without any understanding of the complexities of such events. Worst of all, the pacing is so frantic that it's difficult to feel involved in the potentially riveting story.Perhaps part of the problem is in the very nature of the set-up - the Kennedy women simply aren't as interesting as their husbands as they were only bit players in the most interesting events in history. The Cuban missile crisis, for example, must have been a fascinating and horrifying event to live through. Yet seen through Jackie's eyes, it barely sustains interest and is over in five minutes because she barely had anything to do with it.'The Women of Camelot' is only tolerable because the Kennedys were such an interesting family who played such a significant role in American history in the sixties. No doubt there is a better film to be made of their experiences, one that doesn't turn the story into a cheap and dull soap opera.