Chappaquiddick (2017) was released fifty years too late. That was my thought when I first sat down to watch this movie on Netflix and that was my thought when I finished it. I'm a millennial and I bet that the majority of Americans under the age of 40 (and maybe even under the age of fifty) have no idea what the Chappaquiddick Incident even was. If you were to ask someone what Chappaquiddick is they would probably reply with a shrug and say that it's some Native American term (it is, but that's besides the point). It's a shame that this incident isn't taught in history or political science classes. Chappaquiddick is one of the defining moments in American politics in the last fifty years. It laid bare the obvious fact that if one has the right amount of money, one has the right connections, and that one has the right last name then you are essentially above the law.
Chappaquiddick was directed by John Curan with a screenplay by Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan. To their credit this movie pull no punches with how matter of fact the cover up of a young woman's death was. The plot of the film is based on the real life incident when Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy (Jason Clarke) drove his car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island with his brother Robert's former campaign aide Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara) after a night of partying, in 1969. Kennedy is able to escape and swim to safety, but instead of immediately going to the police he goes back to the cabin where the party took place and enlists his cousin Joe Gargan (Ed Helms) and Paul F. Markham (Jim Gaffigan), who was the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts to help save Kopechne. After their attempts to save Mary Jo Kopechne fail, they give up and Gargan and Markham tell Kennedy to report the incident to the police. Kennedy instead goes to his hotel and sleeps for ten hours leaving Mary Jo Kopechne to die. Contrary to popular belief, Kopechne did not drown in the pond at Chappaquiddick. She suffocated. The car was not fully submerged and she was able to survive due to an air pocket. It took her two hours to suffocate.
What follows is an immediate cover up. There is no time for mourning when a Kennedy is gearing up for a presidential campaign. After bungling the initial spin with the police and the media, Kennedy enlists the help of his father Joe Kennedy (Bruce Dern), who is confined to a wheelchair and is barely able to speak due to a massive stroke several years before. Joe Kennedy summons up one last dastardly deed in a life defined by dirty deeds. He assembles a public relations team headed by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (Clancy Brown) and former advisor to John F. Kennedy, Ted Sorensen (Taylor Nichols) to salvage his only living son's political career and keep him out of jail.
The performances in this film are excellent even if the actors playing the Massachusetts characters accents falter on occasion. Jason Clarke does a great job at portraying Ted Kennedy. In the film's hour and forty minutes, he is able to show the many facets of Ted Kennedy's personality. Ted Kennedy by the time this film takes is the only surviving brother of the Kennedy Family and forever destined to live in the shadow of his older brothers John and Robert Kennedy. Even someone has slimy as Ted Kennedy comes off as sympathetic when you realize that all his brothers were dead by the time he was in his mid-thirties. Jason Clarke makes it clear right away that Ted Kennedy is not the man or politician that his two older brothers were and that he can never live up the to expectations that America and his father had for him. However, Clarke also portrays Kennedy as the man that never really ever had to work for anything in his whole life, coasted on his name, hid behind his father whenever he got into a little bit of trouble, and did not hesitate to use the tragedies that befell his family for his own benefit. Ted Kennedy despite the tragedies that he endured was the ultimate trust fund kid. Clarke's Kennedy is a guy you can't stand. His inability to take responsibility for his actions and his utter remorselessness for the fact he left a woman to die will sicken you, but you won't be able to look away from the screen.
Kate Mara's role as Mary Jo Kopechne is a small one, but pivotal to the movie's plot. She's able to do a good job with the material that she's given. Her acting as her character suffocates alone in a car realizing that no one was coming to save her will leave you disturbed and even more infuriated that Ted Kennedy got away with it.
Rounding out the remainder of the main cast is Jim Gaffigan, Clancy Brown, Bruce Dern, and Ed Helms. Jim Gaffigan like most comedians is surprisingly good in dramatic roles. His role as Paul F. Markham, the shameless 'yes man' is simple, but he plays it effectively. Clancy Brown's role as Robert McNamara is just further proof that he's incapable of giving a bad performance. Brown is almost sixty years old, but he still gets cast regularly because he is such a professional. Bruce Dern's performance as Joe Kennedy would have been a difficult role for most actors, but Dern dominates the screen despite his character saying only three lines and being unable to move. Dern's portrayal of the patriarch of the Kennedy Family is clever precisely because he doesn't speak. The crisis team led by McNamara and Sorensen does not defer or offer any real level of respect to Ted Kennedy, they take their cues from Joe Kennedy. Dern and Jason Clarke have great chemistry whenever they share the screen together. Ted Kennedy fears and tries to please his father, but can't help himself and sabotages his father's aspirations for him.
Ed Helm's performance as Joe Gargan is the closest thing Chapaquiddick has to a "hero". Gargan is the only character in the film that doesn't enable Ted Kennedy and attempts to convince him to take responsibility for his actions. However, his actions prove fruitless and he watches helplessly as his cousin successfully campaigns to rehabilitate his public image. Helms understands that his roles is that of an audience surrogate and he play it very well. Helm's character gets more frustrated and angry at his cousin as the movie progresses, just like the audience members will.
The Chappaquiddick Incident was a pivotal moment in our nation's politics. It effectively ended the Kennedy Dynasty and Ted Kennedy's chance of becoming President. However, his political career continued. As soon as Ted Kennedy refused to resign his position in the U.S. Senate, it was up to Congress and Massachusetts voters to hold him accountable. Neither one of them did. Ted Kennedy faced no pressure to resign from Congress and the citizens of Massachusetts continued to reelect him to the Senate until he died in 2008 of a brain tumor. It took a literal act of God to get Ted Kennedy out of the Senate. The people of Massachusetts would have probably elected Ted Kennedy's corpse to the Senate if the law allowed for something like that. What made Ted Kennedy's lack of punishment even more egregious was that the Democratic Party promoted him as an icon. Never mind the fact that by the late eighties Kennedy embraced the fact that he was a womanizer and a drunkard. In the now famous GQ article, Ted Kennedy on the Rocks, it alleged that the Senator was a shameless alcoholic that routinely sexually harassed women on Capitol Hill. However, he also pushed for Universal Health Care and social programs for poor people and minorities, so the Democratic Party looked the other way. By the end of his life, Ted Kennedy was a full blown icon of American liberalism. He was given a hero's welcome at the Democratic National Convention, in 2008 and the Democratic Presidential candidates vied for his endorsement. Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama, who graciously accepted it.Our country's failure to hold Ted Kennedy accountable for killing Mary Jo Kopechne allowed for other politicians to get away with various crimes. Bill Clinton was able to finish his term as President despite numerous sexual assault and harassment allegations. Donald Trump bragged about committing acts of sexual assault on tape and he was still elected to our nation's highest office. The failure to hold these men accountable can be traced back to Ted Kennedy.
To finish off my review, I noticed one thing that the makers of Chappaquiddick cleverly chose to focus on. The filmmakers used the Moon Landing as a back drop for this film. It was a remarkable coincidence that the Chappaquiddick Incident and the Apollo 11 mission happened on the same exact weekend. The Apollo 11 mission was spearheaded by President John F. Kennedy at the beginning of the 1960s. The filmmakers recognized that the story of America in the 1960s was the story of the Kennedy Family. America and the Kennedy Family started the 1960s with a genuine sense of optimism over the nation's future as represented by President Kennedy's "We Choose to go to the Moon" speech. By the end of the 1960s, the two most prominent members of the Kennedy Family were dead and the Nation was being ripped apart by race riots, the Vietnam War, and political polarization. The Apollo 11 mission and the Chappaquiddick Incident are a demonstration of two America's. The Apollo 11 mission represented our hopes and dreams for a wondrous future and the Chappaquiddick Incident represented our nation's reality. Our dreams and hopes may have been President John F. Kennedy's Apollo program, but our reality was Ted Kennedy's and that reality was suffocating in a pond.
Overall Rating: ****
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