Chappaquiddick - Review

Chappaquiddick

Australian Actor Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty, Mudbound and Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes) plays the lead role in the true story of former Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and the singular event that both changed and shaped his political future as the longest serving Senator in United States history.

On July 18, 1969 two days before Neil Armstrong took his historical first steps on the surface of the moon, Sen. Ted Kennedy was having a gathering of friends on Massachusetts' Chappaquiddick Island. Late that evening Kennedy and a former aid to his slain brother Bobby Kennedy named Mary Jo Kopechne, now a 28-year-old campaign strategist on Ted’s Staff, left in his car together that resulted in him driving off of a wooden bridge on the island. The accident caused the drowning death of Kopechne creating a fire storm of both possible criminal and political consequences for the young Senator. It’s this event some historians believe and the subsequent police investigation that followed into the woman’s mysterious scandalous death forever altered Ted Kennedy’s political legacy and possibly changed the course of American presidential history.

REVIEW: “Chappaquiddick” is not about any affirmation of liberal politics or the liberal legacy of Senator Kennedy. What it is about is one of the oldest stories known, where and when the corrosive advantages of wealth, power, privilege, class and even race can allow some people to break (some) laws with impunity avoiding the life damaging consequences of being branded a felon.

Such was the case of this film as Director John Curran makes no attempt to sugar coat the obvious fact that not only did Ted Kennedy take great pains to use his wealth and name to avoid any criminal charges for his drunk driving induced accident that night but also to assure by any and normal legal standards avoid being found guilty of involuntary manslaughter (as he probably should have). Director Curran does not make Kennedy into some saint. He pulls off the scab with no hidden agenda other than telling the truth of what happen that night and to Kennedy pleading guilty to the misdemeanor of leaving the scene of a car accident.

The film also shows how emotional weak the 37 year old Ted Kennedy was during the time. His father, while terribly debilitated by a stroke, still yielded great demanding influence over the entire Kennedy clan, especially Ted. From the film’s perspective Ted is seen more as a sympathetic character as he was constantly living under the great legacies of his older brothers who all died tragically but were still seen both by his father and the nation as a whole as heroes. The oldest Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr. was a United States Navy lieutenant who was killed in action during World War II while serving as a land-based patrol bomber pilot. President John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. And Bobby Kennedy the former US Attorney General and Senator of Massachusetts was assassinated while running for President in 1968. 

Comparatively speaking Ted at this time in his life felt the heavy burden of having no meaningful accomplishments in his life like his brothers before the events of the accident. Now he was struggling even more so with the possible lasting legacy as the surviving patriarch of the family of being a criminal felon which was made even more unbearable with the back drop of Neil Armstrong fulfilling his brother’s Jack legacy of landing a man on the moon before the end of the 1960’s decade.

Structurally, while the film starts out a little slow with its running time of 1:41 minutes, I came to realize this was a nuance examination of both Ted’s life and the tragic events of the accident. Specifically, “Chappaquiddick” while has a very plodding workmanlike script it still gives up a compelling telling of the details of the fatal accident and its turbulent aftermath. And while the editing makes the film feel occasionally a bit heavy handed in its execution of those events, it still is a powerful reminder of how money and powerful influences behind the scenes can work effectively for the elite few.

In the end there is an unanswered question.  Did Sen. Ted Kennedy leave Mary Jo to drown in his plunged car? The film doesn’t’ try to answer this question as much as it does answer the fact the young Senator and the people loyal to him, including the police collectively allow their moral compasses to be manipulated and compromised while illustrating everything involving Mary Jo death was an absorbingly tragic piece of American political history.

3.50 Stars