produced and co-wrote it. She had wanted to adapt the book since she first read it a decade ago, but postponed it until she was old enough to play the leading role of a mother herself. She collaborated closely with Amos, showing him drafts of her script as she adapted the book. A. O. Scott of The New York Times found it to be a "conscientious adaptation of a difficult book" and was appreciative of Portman's potential as a filmmaker. She next produced and starred in the western film Jane Got a Gun about a young mother seeking vengeance. Initially scheduled to be directed by Lynne Ramsay, the production was plagued with numerous difficulties. Ramsay did not turn up on set for the first day of filming and was eventually replaced with Gavin O'Connor. Michael Fassbender, Jude Law, and Bradley Cooper were all cast as the male lead, before Ewan McGregor played the part. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian reviewed that Portman's "stately performance" was not enough to save the "laborious and solemn western", and it grossed less than $4 million against its $25 million budget. 2016–present: Jackie and beyond Portman portrayed Jacqueline Kennedy in the Pablo Larraín-directed biopic Jackie (2016), about Kennedy's life immediately after the 1963 assassination of her husband. She was initially intimidated to take on the part of a well-known public figure, and eventually researched Kennedy extensively by watching videos of her, reading books, and listening to audiotapes of her interviews. She also worked with a dialect coach to adopt Kennedy's unique speaking style. David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter termed it an "incandescent performance" and added that "her Jackie is both inscrutable and naked, broken but unquestionably resilient, a mess and yet fiercely dignified". She won the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also served as producer for the comedy horror film Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, directed by Burr Steers, and starred in Rebecca Zlotowski's French-Belgian drama Planetarium. The 2017 experimental romance Song to Song marked Portman's second collaboration with Terrence Malick, which like their previous film polarized critics. In 2018, Portman starred in the science fiction film Annihilation, based on Jeff VanderMeer's novel. She played a biologist and former soldier who studies a mysterious quarantined zone of mutating organisms. She was pleased to headline a rare female-led science fiction film,