Absurd Judy Davis performance
I don't see that this film is either the hatchet job that was feared by some, nor any breakthrough in biopic accuracy touted by others. Indeed, it's a very odd patchwork of styles and stances.
The most peculiarly obvious and uncommented feature is the ridiculously camp performance by the renowned Judy Davis. Her characterization of a sneering, eye-rolling, twitching bitch-goddess is worthy of a drag revue, not an historical re-enactment, and makes the film virtually incoherent on a psychological level. What would a good-natured, well-liked and attractive naif (which is about the most the film concedes in its mildly condescending portrayal of Reagan) see in a quivering, designing ice-queen like this Nancy Reagan? She may as well have been wearing a purple shroud, passing out poison apples and talking to a magic mirror-mirror on the wall.
Yes, we know the Reagans had a mysteriously strong chemistry, and it appears to be true that she was the shrewder of the two about the dark and avaricious side of human nature, but the film merely states that without in the least discovering a plausible depiction of how such attraction-of-opposites would work in any situation more dimensional than a cartoon.