If you were wondering what all of that film-festival buzz was about, look no farther than the latest trailer for Jackie—which offers viewers their most in-depth look yet at the masterpiece from Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín, starring Natalie Portman as the title character. Told from the former First Lady’s perspective, the film takes an unprecedented look at the three days following John F. Kennedy’s assassination, during which Jackie, leveled by shock and grief, must look past her pain to protect the legacy of her husband.

Portman’s performance has already been tipped as the one to beat come next year’s Oscar season, and the new preview shows viewers why. The Academy Award winner channels Jackie’s iconic vocal delivery, fragility, and demure strength in a series of close-ups that telegraph the First Lady’s heartbreak in a way that has never been portrayed this viscerally before.

In our conversation with Neruda at the Toronto International Film Festival, the filmmaker explained why Portman was perfect for the challenging role.

“I didn’t see anybody else playing her,” Neruda explained. “It was a combination of elegance, sophistication, intelligence, and fragility. Beauty and sadness can be something very powerful in our culture.”

During a separate interview with Portman, the actress explained how her research for the role gave her an entirely new understanding of the historical figure she played.

“I mean, I always had this icon respect [for her], like, ‘Oh, she’s so elegant,’” Portman explained. “But not this sort of interior respect of the inner strength it took to be that composed to the world [in the days following her husband’s assassination], as a sort of gift to the world, because she understood how symbolic her reactions to all of these events would be while she was obviously crumbling inside.”

“She was a real scholar of history—just curious about history, and obsessively read history—and understood how important it is who writes the history,” Portman continued. “And she knew it was up to her to define her husband’s legacy because he could no longer do that, and it had to be done quickly because there were dozens of other people ready to jump in and publish the first book about him, and she needed to be there to control it—and she did brilliantly.”

Jackie opens in limited theaters on December 2.