Film Review: Chappaquiddick

Chappaquiddick is a very frustrating film. Though, not for the reason you might expect. Many of the right ingredients are here for something special, but somehow it doesn’t all come together. Maybe if you’re a young audience member who doesn’t know about the accident on Chappaquiddick island in 1969, director, John Curran, and writers, Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan, will do the job in filling you in on the basic, overall who/what/where/when/why/how of the situation. But if you’re looking for anything deeper, you should look elsewhere.

The story hits the ground running as it builds to the accident in the first 15 minutes after setting up Ted Kennedy (Jason Clarke) and his position in the family. He has big ambitions, but he also has insecurities. He feels he doesn’t have the intelligence nor the leadership skills that his brothers Bobby and Jack had, and since they’ve both passed (along with his long gone brother Joe), the legacy of the Kennedy family rests on Ted as he hopes to prep for a presidential run in 1972.

However, those ambitions quickly come to an end when a late night drive after a party led to an accident where Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara), one of Bobby’s former secretaries who worked on his campaign, was left to drown in a river, and died as a result. Ted is now forced to use all his available resources to keep the public from turning against him and his family legacy.

There is a very compelling story here, but the execution of the film leaves a lot to be desired. Taking the standard prestige drama approach to the story felt like it prevented potentially unique angles to be explored. So, at the end of the day, what we’re left with is a film that has nothing particularly interesting to say except “rich white guys can get away with a lot,” which – while true – will not ring profound to anyone watching the film unless you’re just not paying attention to the world around you.

There are a few moments where the film does gain a pulse, and it’s in those moments when I realized what the film should’ve been from the beginning. The moments I’m talking about are ones where the film leans on some of the more ridiculous elements of the story, often portraying Ted in an incredibly unflattering manner. He will make statements or choices with such confidence, completely unaware that those statements or choices in handling the reaction to the accident are laughably bad. At times, it seemed like the script was written as a dark comedy, but the filmmakers were not aware. It’s truly bizarre sometimes. Even if the film had tried this approach, and failed miserably, it would at least be trying something.

Unfortunately, that isn’t the movie we got. It’s not even bad. It’s serviceable, and the cast (made up of folks like Ed Helms, Jim Gaffigan, Olivia Thirlby, Bruce Dern, and Clancy Brown) is more than good enough to make it effortlessly watchable. It just happens to be one of those films where you can’t help but imagine countless ways it could’ve been improved as you’re watching it. That’s why it’s frustrating. It’s always so close to reaching something interesting, but falls back to the easiest and safest approach at every point. I don’t think it’s out of laziness, I think it’s out of respect, especially that of Mary Jo, who has been left voiceless by the circus that has ensued after her death. But even in this film, she’s given two scenes, and none of it is really enough to flesh out who she was as an individual. Her memory ultimately falls into the background as the story gets into the nitty-gritty of Ted’s attempt at damage control.

If you want to see a serious film about the complexity surrounding the preservation of the Kennedy legacy, Jackie has you covered. If you want to see a not-so-serious film about politicians scrambling to make things go their way, I’m sure The Death of Stalin is still playing in a theater near you. Roger Ebert famously said, “It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.” Chappaquiddick exemplifies this better than anything I’ve seen recently. It’s a film that should be subversive, thoughtful, and leave the audience with complex emotions, but it just doesn’t. If you know nothing about this story, there is some value here, but unlike Ted’s account of the fateful accident, there is no more to Chappaquiddick than meets the eye.