Review of Chappaquiddick (2018) by Zach F — 09 May 2018

Billed as a political thriller, Chappaquiddick instead eschews such genre conventions for a deeper look into Ted Kennedy the man. This isn't an inherently bad move, as the available material is rich, fascinating and tragic. But this particular production simply fails to bring those adjectives to life. Its stretches of slow-motion, contemplative flashbacks and long silences do little to liven a narrative filled with empty, underdeveloped characters. I don't think I've ever seen a movie hint at so many interesting ideas without really being interesting itself.

The facts are undeniably intriguing, all the more so because many remain, to this day, inconclusive. What we know is that in July 1969 Ted Kennedy took a trip to Edgartown, on the coast of Martha's Vineyard. He planned to race in the annual Edgartown Yacht Club Regatta. But he also took a ferry to nearby Chappaquiddick Island, where he attended a house party with some close friends and several young women. The latter were known as the Boiler Room Girls, each having served on Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign the previous year.

Sometime around 11:15 pm, Ted and one of the Girls, Mary Jo Kopechne, left the party for a drive in his Oldsmobile. Shortly thereafter the car rolled off narrow Dike Bridge and into a tidal channel. Ted managed to swim free, but Mary Jo was still trapped inside. Most of the vehicle was submerged; Ted evidently tried several times to free her, but was unsuccessful. He eventually made his way back to the party for help, but his friends' rescue attempts were also in vain. The police weren't notified until 10 am the next morning.

I could go on, and it's hard to fathom a true-life mystery like this losing steam. But director John Curran and debut writers Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan don't seem to know how to put the puzzle together. One moment it seems the narrative is focused in a certain direction, on a single character, only to pull out at the following juncture and recalibrate down a different path. The effect is disorienting. We, the audience, cover a lot of ground, but remain detached from the proceedings.

After the accident, Ted retreats to the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port where his father has summoned a cabal of PR advisors to spin his son out of this mess. But each calculated move to corner the story seems upended by news of a fresh information breach. They're always one step behind, aimless, performing damage control on their own damage control. This is how the movie feels.

Don't blame the cast. Jason Clarke, an underappreciated Hollywood Brit, gives Ted a sinister vulnerability that braces us in our conflicted emotional response. Ed Helms shines as Joe Gargan, Ted's cousin and the moral center of the film. You'd never know he was a comedian. And, as few actors could, Bruce Dern brings a hollow, tyrannical heart to his portrayal of Joe Kennedy, despite the patriarch's stroke-induced fragility.

Still more impressive are the profound questions that the movie manages to ask. Ted Kennedy comes across as an overprivileged manipulator who had no qualms about lying his way out of trouble. Yet the public adored him, even after Chappaquiddick. Did they not know the whole truth (or at least this film's version of it)? Or were they simply seduced by the 'Kennedy mystique', as evidenced by the real-life street interviews near the end of the film? Ted was from Camelot-he must have been a virtuous knight.

Then there's his relationship with his father. Ted never really wanted to be president, but of course Joe wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. Joe Jr., Jack and Bobby were gone; Ted was his father's last chance at vicarious glory. This expectation, suggests the film, became a pressure that weighed Ted down. It was like a sickness, eating into his soul and turning him into someone he never expected to be.

My advice: if you watch Chappaquiddick, don't plan to be entertained so much as provoked-into confusion, anger, even sympathy. If Ted Kennedy is the villain of this story, he's one for whom your heart can't help but break just a little.