A smart story of crash scandal
Joe Jr was a US Navy pilot killed on a top secret mission in 1944. John was assassinated in 1963, while President of the United States. Robert was murdered in 1968, after serving as US AttorneyGeneral. And then there was Ted, the youngest and only surviving Kennedy son, widely believed to be a favourite for the Democratic nomination in 1972 and a man who had a clearer path to the US presidency than anyone else alive.
But in 1969, on the weekend the world was mesmerised by the first moon landing, Ted – probably – drove a car off a bridge in Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts. A young woman died and Kennedy was unable to give an adequate account of his actions that night. Kennedy went on to be re-elected as Senator for Massachusetts for the next 40 years. But he was always shadowed and stained by the scandal that became known simply as Chappaquiddick.
Director John Curran (who debuted with the gorgeous in 1998, and has gone on to make and Tracks) paints with layers of meaning and interpretation. As rooms full of white men in grey suits debate which lie will serve them best, Kennedy (played superbly by Jason Clarke, of
vacillates between connivance and conscience. At one level wanting to do the honourable thing and tell everything he knows and, at another, wanting to save the legacy of the political dynasty he is the last, best, hope for.
Kate Mara brings some steel to her few scenes as Mary Jo Kopechne, the victim of the crash. Ed Helms, Bruce Dern, Jim Gaffigan, Clancy Brown and Olivia Thirlby are all fine in support.
doesn’t have the flourish or poetry of Pablo Larraı´n’s but there is a clear-eyed rigour and commitment within this film that makes it all too easy to forget this is still a work of imagination and supposition.
The events of the days before and after the crash are a matter-ofrecord. But no one alive really knows what happened on the night, or how closely Kennedy’s version of the tragedy aligned with the truth. That leaves looking like an extremely smart film indeed. This is not history any more or less than Armando Ianucci’s is history. It is an extraordinarily stealthy satire of politics, and a quietly savage glimpse behind the stage of the theatre of public life. Very recommended.