The fates were particularly cruel to the Kennedy family in the 20th century. Everyone knows about John F. Kennedy’s infamous motorcade through downtown Dallas, but few people still remember the other tragedies of this family and era. The eldest Kennedy boy was shot down during the Second World War, the eldest daughter was lobotomised at the age of 23, and Bobby Kennedy just like his older brother was gunned down in strange and terrible circumstances. With so much triumph and tragedy to do with this family, hardly anyone remembers what happened July 18, 1969 on Chappaquiddick Island.
Ted Kennedy (Jason Clarke) was the youngest of the Kennedy children. In the late 60s he was a senator with hopes of getting the democratic nomination and following in the footsteps of his much more famous older brothers. On the island of Chappaquiddick, just off the coast of Massachusetts, he was celebrating with some friends and attending the annual yacht club regatta in the summer of 1969. During a late night drive with his 28-year-old passenger Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara) he flipped his car over a bridge and landed upside down in the ocean. Kennedy swam to safety, leaving Kopechne in the backseat to drown. The film follows the weeks after, as Kennedy and his team of lawyers do everything they can to soften the fallout that tails such a grizzly incident.
Directed by John Curran and working off a screenplay by Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan, Chappaquiddick is a very competently made and constantly compelling exposé of this largely forgotten incident. Australia’s Jason Clarke is always a solid presence, playing Kennedy as the kind of powerful man who has started to genuinely believe the delusions and alternative facts he peddles. It’s a kind of self-fulfilling fallacy that is well documented in the halls of political history.
The film is a fairly damning portrayal of Ted Kennedy, which is surprising considering the high regard that popular memory has of this family. It’s clear he never intended any of this to happen but – if the portrayal in this film is to be believed – he sure didn’t take any qualm bending a few facts to save himself jail time. Scenes of his team of lawyers discussing which approach will lead to the least amount of damage are almost comical, with that kind of dangerous, self-righteous farce that can only come from a room full of middle-aged white men in suits.
Ed Helms as a Kennedy aide is one of the surprising take outs. This is one of his few purely dramatic roles, taking a break from his usual comic performances, and with a thick New England accent he’s a fairly compelling presence. Bruce Dern as Joe Kennedy Sr. makes for a rather confronting part too; he only gets three lines (at this stage in history he had suffered a stroke and half his body was paralysed) but he’s well cast as a supremely cranky old man.
Enough time has passed to start making films that expose the lesser known corners of the 1960s. Chappaquiddick is an informative and occasionally condemnatory portrayal of a man that spent his life living in the shadows of other, greater men. It makes you think what kinds of films will be made in the years to come that expose the lesser known ploys that are happening right now in our own political and cultural spheres, because no script writer could even dream up the unthinkable political stories that seem to happen every other day in our current world.
Chappaquiddick is screening as part of the Young at Heart Film Festival from 17th to 25th April.
