Chappaquiddick (2017)

Powerful and corrupt politicians, cops and judges all backed up Teddy's involvement and instead of manslaughter charges, he became the Lion of the Senate. This movie is superb and doesnt condemn or vilify the late Senator. Rather, it illustrates what people, like me, who lived through the time period believed: that Teddy successfully used his family connections to get special treatment from the criminal justice system. It also portrays the Kopchene as regular, trusting people who had no choice but to believe, or at least pretend to believe, the powerful Kennedys version of events. Go see it and form your own opinion.

Fmovies: This film disappoints. I remember the event quite well and most of the true happenings were covered up and this movie does nothing to add to the truth.

We will never know the complete truth, but money talks and happened in the cover up, but this was not even included in this film. It appears that even 50 odd years later, it is still impossible to get the whole truth, so the Kennedy power still reigns.

A sad day. I feel this movie should not have been released as the speculation will continue, yet a person lost her life and the culprit got away with it.

I don't see it about being great men, but about looking like them. So much of this is about the patriarchal power structure surrounding to protect the queen bee, then the act of watching them scramble and save the hive, not the death itself is its study. A sort of false alarm that exposes the mechanism. The way it cross cuts moon landing shows the purpose of 'greatness' as the consequence of story. As in idealism leads to outcome so the machine should be input with idealized humanity first before anything else. So if you look right, you are right. Now the fact of his reaction points to his flaw being human at all, in his expectation to be more than that which parallels the effect of his spot in the hierarchy of brothers; so his failing is failing where they succeed: you can say being superhuman ideals, I can say non-feeling psychopaths without a conscience as it demands, both mutual costs. "I'm not going to be President" clues us into his horrible selfishness his brothers had imparted on him--remember he is very much conscious and awake to them, and this is the films journey from being the one best suited to lead to earn being 'chosen': hence enduring lion of the senate is both a reward for his goodness to the others, and also an albatross around his neck. His outcome is both a punishment and reward at the same time. How we get there shows feelings seen as weakness--and the continual reactions of the insane father but then as well it's a mantra, an excuse to voice the dread he'd always known. We keep telling the screen with his complaints of being lesser than great, 'So what?' None of them were great to begin with. JFK was a moral nightmare with his affairs. Ed Helms as the moral arbiter, I'm not fully buying, rather could it not be said he's using the brother to get back at the family he doesn't belong? Then it's not not being great rather the trace of goodness separates them in Helm's crusade of feeling vs non-feeling. Then 'You will never be great' reads as 'You are the greatest of us.' (Its theme of consciousness is why his father is trapped inside.) Last is its great feat as the concept cinema with how we fill in the gaps; it's the same with the secretaries who come from his brothers campaigns. It's the same with the army of lawyers. These are small windows into massive powers in a way only theater can accomplish where imagination projects ourselves in the frame of its abstract mental landscape; and such empathy at the top of the pyramid is a frightening feat, especially how to manages to make the Kennedys seem like troubled underdogs (!?). I also liked its ominous musical tones feeling like The Terminator, associating it to Kennedy--Schwarzenneger (and Jason Clarke in Genisys) showing a different shade of how these embodiment of our ideals comes at a cost of the mechanization of the person. The consciousness alibi.

Chappaquiddick fmovies. I and a lady friend watched Chappaquiddick last night in a Santa Monica theater. We sat in our seats utterly transfixed as if witnessing, for the first time, a slow-motion reel of the Hindenburg disaster. Given the nature of Hollywood one expected heavy dollops of exculpatory 'nuance' but, astonishingly, the movie gives it to Ted Kennedy good and hard. He's depicted as none too bright and near-psychopathic in his self-absorption. A burgeoning alcohol problem is evident.

The Australian actor, Jason Clarke, in addition to resembling Kennedy, offers a convincing incarnation even as his Boston brogue tunes in and out. With a single exception, the members of Kennedy's faithful 'brain trust' come off as genuinely frightening with their calculating and morality-free counsel.

Questions remain. Was Kennedy having an affair with Mary Jo Kopechne, one of the "Boiler Room Girls"? Did the two enjoy, on that warm summer evening, a sexual dalliance prior to arriving at the bridge? Kennedy's account of the timeline was found to be full of contradictions and Kopechne's body was retrieved minus her underwear. It was quickly cremated, advantage Team Kennedy. The film's depiction of her as a lovely, classy young woman full of promise may or may not be mythical. We'll never know. John Farrar was the captain of the Edgartown Fire Rescue unit and the diver who recovered Kopechne's body. He reported:

It looked as if she were holding herself up to get a last breath of air. It was a consciously assumed position.... She didn't drown. She died of suffocation in her own air void. It took her at least three or four hours to die. I could have had her out of that car twenty-five minutes after I got the call. But he (Ted Kennedy} didn't call.

The senator didn't report the fatal car accident for 10 hours. But he got a lucky break. On the evening of July 18, 1969, most Americans were home absorbed watching television reports on the progress of the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission.

The Kennedys are/were the ultimate Teflon political dynasty.Are we permitted to speculate if the driver had been a Republican politico or a scion of the Bush family? According to the Camelot script, Kennedy was to run for President while the loyal knights of the realm would drop everything and rally to the last, unmartyred brother. He tried but failed, never fully recovering from that incident on the bridge. But his loyal Massachusetts constituents sent him back to the Senate six times.

Byron Allen, the mogul whose company released the film, hinted that several Kennedy allies sought to deep-six the project.

"Unfortunately, there are some very powerful people who tried to put pressure on me not to release this movie. They went out of their way to try and influence me in a negative way. I made it very clear that I'm not about the Right, I'm not about the Left. I'm about the truth."

GRADE: B+

THIS FILM IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

IN BRIEF: An riveting factual retelling of a political scandal and cover-up that changed the life of one man and a nation. JIM'S REVIEW: One man remained above the law. One nation watched in shock and disbelief as the event unfolded. One woman dead. Such is the scandal and cover-up of Senator Edward "Teddy" Kennedy and his ill-fated accident that changed his life and took the life of campaign worker, Mary Jo Kopechine. Chappaquiddick, John Curran's fine retelling of true events shows those days in 1969 when the young inebriated senator made that dire mistake, driving off a bridge and leaving a friend to slowly drown in a slightly submerged car. His decision lacked courage and integrity which cost him a political future to become America's once and future president. But our nation does love the rise and fall of the rich and famous...and their ultimate comeback.

Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan create a timeline that shows the unscrupulous damage control crafted by powerful men to protect their own, with little regard for the true victim. The script focuses on six days, from the fatal crash to the senator's televised plea to a country to forgive him his trespasses, ending in actual footage from real people who commented most positively on his "forced" confession. To the film's credit, it does not shy away from Kennedy's caddish behavior, the numerous illegal acts, and exposes the "spin" (which is ever prevalent today, while being a rarity back then). Their narrative could use more backstory to give more substance to the possible relationship of the politician and his victim. It only hints at that aspect and is a tad unjust to Ms. Kopechine's character by making her an incomplete pawn rather than a fully dimensional character. Kate Mara plays her very well and one wishes more screen time was spent in flashbacks about her character and motives.

However, the majority of the film is a showcase for Jason Clarke as Ted Kennedy. It is an excellent performance of a troubled and desperate man at terms with his own weaknesses. Mr. Clarke is a forceful presence and fully captures the Massachusetts senator's persona. (It is deserving of an Oscar nomination, although it will surely be forgotten due to the film's early release.) Also giving excellent support are Ed Helms as his close ally and conscience, Joe Gargan, Clancy Brown as Robert MacNamara, Taylor Nichols as Ted Sorensen, and Bruce Dern as the cruel patriarch, Joseph Kennedy. (The scene between father and son is brutal to watch, and Mr. Dern conveys his disappointment and personal disgust with barely a word as Mr. Clarke searches for any ounce of compassion and tenderness.) Rounding out the strong ensemble are Jim Gaffigan and Olivia Thirlby.

Mr. Curran directs with a solid vision and effectively jumps back to the incident to remind his audience of the tragedy of a human life cut short countering with the political mechanisms of a political life saved at all cost. That Senator Kennedy went on to continue a healthy career and eluded any jail time, never being convicted of manslaughter seems an odd turn of events in this enthralling and disturbing drama. But truth is stranger than fiction and Chappaquiddick is an honest depiction of dishonest times. It is a movie definitely worth viewing.

Ted Kennedy and his memory even today is idolized by various women's groups. This movie shows the truth for those of us who remember his abandonment of Mary Jo and let her die a slow, agonizing death in the car he crashed. And then his contradictory stories in the cover up. The powerful family even reached into the court system to block exhumation of Mary Jo's body, thus helping the extensive coverup. This is a real story about real people and until this movie, the media protected Teddy and his powerful family. More people should see this, the truth should be out there. And Ted Kennedy should not be idolized. He should have faced a jury on manslaughter charges.