ERRING ON THE SIDE OF CAUTION
Chappaquiddick tries too hard to avoid speculation about Kennedy’s fateful night
Chappaquiddick is a film about a man who doesn’t become president of the United States. Granted, that could describe a lot of movies — most of the Fast and Furious films, for instance, and Police Academy 2 and 5. But the not-president in this case is Ted Kennedy, long-serving U.S. senator from Massachusetts.
The Chappaquiddick incident, named after the tony island near Martha’s Vineyard where it happened, involved an automobile driven by Kennedy, and
a 28-year-old political campaign worker, Mary Jo Kopechne, who died after the car went off a narrow bridge and overturned in shallow water on the night of July 18, 1969.
Kennedy walked away from the crash and did not immediately report the accident, which may have sealed Kopechne’s fate.
“May have” is a key phrase in the story of Chappaquiddick. (Google “Kennedy” and “conspiracy theory” and I won’t be responsible for where you end up.)
The screenplay by Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan is careful— far too careful, methinks — not to be too judgmental in telling the tale. Is Kopechne still alive hours after the crash, or is that just Kennedy’s guilty conscience? It’s never made clear.
Kate Mara stars as the victim, while Jason Clarke steps into the soggy shoes of Kennedy, his performance getting stronger as the film goes on. At the end we see the peculiar sheen of a man in the grip of believing his own lies. But by then it’s too late for the movie, whose caution is its undoing.
Director John Curran makes some other interesting casting choices, not least in putting some actors known for comedy into dramatic roles. Ed Helms plays Joe Gargan, who was Kennedy’s cousin and lawyer — you can see him fighting between the desire to be an insider and the instinct to do the right thing. “This isn’t about opportunity,” he says at a key moment. “It’s about integrity.”
Jim Gaffigan plays Paul Markham, U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, and another of Kennedy’s confidants that fateful night.
It is, ironically, Clancy Brown as former U.S. secretary of defense Robert McNamara who hits the film’s first darkly comic note when he rattles off the known things Kennedy has to keep from spreading, the unknowns he has to keep that way, and some things “that we need to make people forget.” Kennedy’s advisers can’t believe the lucky timing that this is all happening as Apollo 11 is en route to the moon for the first lunar landing. The world was looking to the skies, even as Kennedy and the others all looked down.
Chappaquiddick has the makings of a political thriller, but Curran’s decision to avoid speculation, while laudable, takes the wind out of the film’s sails. In many ways, Kennedy’s careful behaviour after the accident plays out in the making of the movie. “Talk from the heart,” one of his lawyers advises him before a televised address to the nation. And then he adds: “We’ll have cue cards.”