The senator, secretary and the cover-up
Jason Clarke, Kate Mara, Ed Helms, Bruce Dern, Jim Gaffigan, Olivia Thirlby. Tracks covered leave a man exposed
STEEL yourself in advance for Chappaquiddick, a quietly provocative, poignantly compelling docu-drama chronicling an infamous incident in the annals of American politics.
The incident ended the promising life of a young woman and the considerable aspirations of a man who may have become a US President.
The story opens in the late hours of July 18, 1969, where a car driven by Senator Edward Kennedy (played by Australian Jason Clarke) suddenly spears off a bridge and into the water.
Kennedy walks away from the accident unscathed. As he strolls back to a party he has just left, his passenger in the sunken vehicle, a former campaign secretary named Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara), is fighting for life.
In the days to follow, several cynical attempts are made to get the senator looking like a heroically innocent victim of bad luck. A sleazy support network acting on the wishes of ailing family patriarch Joseph Kennedy (Bruce Dern) gathers around Teddy to strategise.
Local connections are called in to enact the cover-up. And what a cover-up it indeed had to be. Even now, it is unbelievable to process how Kennedy took eight hours to report his part in the tragedy.
Citing the after-effects of shock, concussion and a neck injury (none of which were noted by a physician), Teddy checked himself into a hotel, taking a bath and getting a good night’s sleep before deigning to front the cops.
Though every US news outlet was pressing for answers, he was able to evade a grilling due to the vagaries of the news cycle that week; 36 hours later the world watched the first moon landing.
This powerful tale of galling entitlement and insensitivity is filtered through an impressive performance by Clarke, who finds in Kennedy the pathological combination of a man stunned by what he has done, yet stirred by what he must do.