Film review: CHAPPAQUIDDICK

"I could have had her out of that car in 25 minutes--if I got the call--but no one called."

While JFK's vision of landing a man on the moon was being fulfilled, his surviving family members were thrilled to have something to distract the public from their latest scandal.

At least, that's the justification Chappaquiddick presents for spending the first thirty minutes badly wishing it could be a film about Apollo 11 instead. It gets really distracting when you realize that Jason Clarke (Ted Kennedy) played Ed White* in First Man the following year (and, if you criticized his appearance in First Man, you find yourself wondering if he put on weight to play Kennedy and then had trouble shaking it off).

*So, yes, the first two things I saw Clarke in, he was playing historical Americans named Edward who were involved in fatal late-60s vehicle accidents. Talk about typecasting. 

I might be being a bit unkind. It's not so much that Chappaquiddick wishes it could be about the more heroic of the two events that took place fifty years ago this weekend, but rather that Ted wishes he could have been John. Ted is, after all, the Fredo Corleone of the Kennedy clan and, had his brothers not all died, probably would have been content to drink and whore his way through life. But as it is, Ted's the last surviving Kennedy son, the heir to the progressive mantle, the guy who has to shoulder the burden and dropped it in what would have been a spectacular manner had the media been remotely inclined to do its job.

Clarke as Kennedy

Let's not mince words here: the best thing about this movie is Clarke's fantastic performance. (At this point I think it's fair to say that that's going to be the best thing about any film he's in, although Everest gave him some competition from two co-stars and the score. But were it not for Karl Urban, I'd feel comfortable calling Clarke my favorite actor of his generation (dude is 50. DAMN).)

For those of you who don't know the story: shortly before the First Moon Landing (which, again, is overemphasized - to the point where the main titles are superimposed over Apollo 11's launch), Teddy Kennedy (John and Bobby's sole surviving brother) hosts a party for Bobby's old campaign aides and toys with the notion of running for president. During the night he runs off with one particular aide, Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara). Drunk, he drives off the road* into a pond and, after an abortive attempt or two** to save her, returns to his hotel room and goes to sleep as she suffocates*** in the partially-submerged car in the film's best and most chilling sequence. The film doesn't shy away from letting you know that if Kennedy had gone to the police first thing, Kopechne would have lived. The second half of the film deals with Ted trying to grapple with the political fallout. Since he doesn't have John's charm or Bobby's brains, he makes a mess of it, prompting his gravely-ill father (Bruce Dern, playing a toned-down version of Joe Kennedy's real-life monstrosity****) to call in the old brain trust and sort out Ted's mess for him.

*Note the phrasing there, left-wing media. It's not "his car went off the road." Ted Kennedy drove the car into a pond.

**I say "or two" because his first attempt, before he returns to the party house, is only shown at the end of the film, while he's presenting his (sanitized) version of what happened to the public, implying that it did not happen.

***Note: not drowned. 50 years later a lot of people seem to still think she drowned (i.e., died quickly). Nope. Thanks, left-wing media!

****Guy had his daughter lobotomized. That is all.

There are great little character beats to show you just what kind of men the Kennedys are; when Ted returns to the party, alone, and summons his fixers, his first words to them are "I'm not going to be president." When he tells his father, Kennedy Senior's only reaction is "Alibi." (Actually, reactions, plural; Ted calls Joe twice early on, and both times just gets the one word in response.) My personal favorite has to go to Ted's wife, who has exactly one line in the film: Ted shows up to Mary Jo's funeral wearing an unnecessary neck brace, and Mrs. Kennedy just goes "fuck you, Ted."

Also, Clancy Brown as Robert Freaking McNamara was something I didn't know I needed to see.

The film bills itself as "the untold true story," but it ain't really "untold." Just "covered up." Even today, fifty years later, the morally vacuous Associated Press decided to run a sanitized tweet instead of, you know, the truth. Damn it's good to be a Democrat: oh, p.s., Ralph Northam is still in office.

Because it's Current Year and Everything Is Political, I suppose someone to the right of me might make the case that, in presenting Ted as a somewhat rudderless wimp who can't stand up to his (again, monstrosity-downgraded) father, the film asks you to sympathize with a man who doesn't deserve it. To which I say, yes, the film asks you to sympathize with its protagonist. That's what films do. It presents Ted as a human being, rather than an evil caricature - and he still decides to do things that are morally wrong. But if you think the film doesn't definitively condemn him, I implore you to go back and watch the final scene again, and the look of disgust on Joey Gargan (Ed Helms)'s face as Kennedy dodges any moral culpability for his actions.

Anyway, despite the fact that the constant references to the Moon landing in the first thirty minutes might make you think you put in the wrong film by mistake, I do recommend this.