Film Review: Chappaquiddick (2018)

The notorious, submerged black Oldsmobile owned by Senator Ted Kennedy is recreated in Chappaquiddick.

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Chappaquiddick aka The Senator (2018), directed by John Curren; starring Jason Clarke, Bruce Dern, Kate Mara, and Ed Helms.

This film is an engrossing political drama about the death of a young woman named Mary Jo Kopechne, who drowned in a car driven by Senator Ted Kennedy off a bridge on an island called Chappaquidick, off the coast of Massachusetts. The film is known as The Senator in the U.K.

I was in grade school when Chappaquidick occurred, and while I remember some of the news coverage and photos of the era, I didn’t know that much about the details of the case until now.

This film, based on eyewitness accounts, was an eye-opener for me. It’s not an anti-Kennedy polemic, but a low-key, let-the-facts-speak-for-themselves type of film. And the facts, as they unfold, make Ted Kennedy, his family, and his handlers look very, very bad.

The story starts in mid-July, 1969, concurrent with the impending moon landing by the Apollo 11 crew. (The script makes much of the moon landing, contrasting what was President John F. Kennedy’s greatest achievement with the questionable behavior of his only surviving brother.)

A handful of Kennedy aides are holding a small, late night “thank you” party at a rented cottage for a group of young women known collectively as “the boiler room girls”—former staffers who worked on the 1968 presidental campaign of Teddy's other brother, Senator Robert “Bobby” Kennedy. For those too young to remember, Bobby's presidential bid was cut short by assassination in June of 68.

After a night of drinking, Teddy Kennedy (played by Australian actor Jason Clarke), leaves the party with one of the boiler room girls, Miss Kopechne (Kate Mara), ostensibly to drive her back to her hotel. They never make it, as Kennedy’s black Oldsmobile veers off a bridge into Poucha Pond, a sound near the rented cottage. Somehow the Senator works his way out of the submerged car, but Mary Jo is trapped.

The Kennedy Spin Machine

He later claims he tried to get her out, but was unable. Instead of seeking help from the authorities, he goes back to the cottage to get help from two of his most trusted aides -- his cousin Joe Gargan (Ed Helms), and a lawyer named Paul Markham (Jim Gaffigan). Gargan and Markham accompany Teddy to the accident scene and try to free Mary Jo from the car, but they also fail. Incredibly, Teddy then decides to swim from the island to his hotel on the neighboring island of Martha’s Vineyard, leaving Markham and Gargan with the understanding that he will report the accident once he reaches the hotel.

He doesn’t actually report the accident until hours later, after a good night’s sleep and a jovial brunch at the hotel. From there, the film switches to the drama of Teddy and his handlers working furiously to spin the story to save the Senator’s political career. They use all of the Kennedy power, money and prestige to “manage” the local sheriff’s office and district attorney. And they call in heavy hitters from JFK’s presidency to strategize, such as former defense secretary Bob McNamara and the celebrated Kennedy wordsmith, Theodore Sorensen.

It’s plain from the actions and attitudes of the heavy hitters that they don’t really care if Teddy is actually fit to be either a U.S. Senator or a President—they just want to ride his name and prestige back into their old positions at the White House under JFK. Gargan and Markham, meanwhile, start to pull away, disgusted at the spin job.

One of the most damaging facts to emerge from this film is that, contrary to popular belief, Mary Jo probably didn’t die by drowning. The diver who recovered her body said she was sitting up, her neck straining, and was probably breathing in a trapped air-pocket for several hours before she suffocated. The diver also said he could have gotten her out in twenty minutes if only the authorities had been contacted immediately. An autopsy would have shown whether Mary Jo suffocated or drowned, but the Kennedy handlers make sure there is no autopsy.

If it’s true about Mary Jo surviving for several hours in the air-pocket, then Kennedy has committed second-degree murder or at least negligent homicide by refusing to get qualified help. However, he is allowed to plead to leaving the scene of an accident and given a two-month suspended sentence.

Speech Saves His Career

Completely disgusted now, Gargan tries to convince his cousin to do the honorable thing, which to Gargan means Teddy confessing and resigning his high position as Senator from Massachussetts. Teddy seems to agree, but double-crosses his cousin and instead, reads a televised, incredibly bullshitty speech excusing his actions to the whole world. Despite being transparently self-serving, the speech, written by old pro spinmeister Sorensen, actually saves his career.

The Senator's office is besieged by sympathetic Massachusetts voters who urge him not to resign. He is later re-elected, again and again, and stayed in office for 40 years after Chappaquiddick, up until he died in 2009.

It’s a stunning testament to the power and prestige of the Kennedys that no significant Hollywood drama has ever been made about Chappaquidick until now—almost 50 years later. Contrast that fact with the Watergate scandal that brought down president Richard Nixon. A major Hollywood film, All the Presidents Men (1976), appeared only two years after Nixon resigned in disgrace. And nobody died from Watergate.

Clarke received a lot of critical plaudits for his performance as Teddy; for me, his acting here took a lot of getting used to. He bears a passing resemblance to Kennedy, but his accent and mannerisms are all wrong.

Ted Kennedy was one of the most famous American men of his generation, and nearly everybody over the age of 25 knows him: the hair, the accent, the mannerisms, the bellowing speeches, the big-toothed grin. Clarke told interviewers he wanted to downplay those characteristics because he didn’t want to get stuck doing a caricature of the famous man. A fair point, but often, Clarke is just too low-key and comes across as a completely different person from the one he’s portraying. He gets better at the end, though, while delivering the bullshitty Sorenson speech, when he finally gets the accent right.

The other actors are good, particularly Helms as the morally conflicted cousin, Joe Gargan. Bruce Dern appears as the patriarch Joe Kennedy, who, by 1969, was paralyzed by a stroke and couldn’t speak. Dern’s performance is little more than a cameo though, as his character can’t really talk.

One of the major flaws in this film is a distinct lack of passion. The determination to “just stick to the facts, ma’m”, leads to a curious feeling of lifelessness about what is actually a very dramatic story in real life. But Chappaquiddick is still an engrossing film about an important chapter in American political history.

IMDb voters give it a 6.5/10, which I feel is about right, although I’d bump it up to a 7 just because of the courage it took to tackle this subject.

If you're interested, here is Teddy's real-life, bullshitty speech that saved his career, preserved forever on YouTube: