Movie Review: "Chappaquiddick" Imagines How a True Tragedy Spun Out of Control

In the curious case of Chappaquiddick, the cover-up is almost as bad as the crime.

Don’t be put off by the 14-letter Massachusettsan mouthful of a title.

Director John Curran’s Chappaquiddick is a swift and eviscerating political procedural that takes the name of the island on which Ted Kennedy (played by a childishly petulant Jason Clarke) nearly met his physical and professional end.

Also, don’t be disheartened if you’re not familiar with the scandal synonymous with Chappaquiddick Island, or even the fact there was a Ted Kennedy. All you need to know is the Kennedys have an outsized reputation in the United States. This is, after all, a family that gave America three fabled brothers: a war hero, Joe, killed in combat; a president, John F. Kennedy, assassinated in office; and a Presidential nominee, Robert, murdered as well. (That’s why there’s talk of a "Kennedy curse" too.)

There was a fourth brother: Ted, aka Edward, the youngest Kennedy son. In ‘69, when Chappaquiddick takes place, newly elected Senator Edward Kennedy is carrying that familial burden to a reunion he’s hosting for Bobby’s female employees, the 'boiler room girls'. They’ve escaped for the weekend to the titular island, to watch the Apollo 11 moon landing, set in motion by JFK almost a decade earlier.

As screenwriters Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan tell it—and it’s worth noting this is a highly speculative tick-tock screenplay, because the major players in the story are either dead or remaining tight-lipped—Ted has too much to drink and takes Bobby’s grief-stricken adviser Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara) for a drive. Speeding away from a police officer, not wanting to add a DUI to his record, he takes a wrong turn and goes off a bridge, crashing the car into a shallow pond. The historical record is muddy, but the truth is undeniable: Ted made it out alive, and he waited ten hours to report the accident. Mary Jo was found dead, yet reports suggest she was still alive in the car when Ted escaped.

That’s the crime—leaving the scene of an accident—and it’s over and done with in the first 20 minutes of Curran’s fleet-footed movie. The rest of it turns that tragedy into a pitch-black comedy of errors, as Ted, realising his own faraway presidential aspirations are at risk, desperately tries to run from his new reality only to further implicate himself and his friends (Ed Helms and Jim Gaffigan). It’s like a Coen brothers flick, except the protagonists in the Coens’ universe don’t have quite the circle of influence as the Kennedys.

Slowly, Ted convinces virtuous and not-so-virtuous people alike to compromise their values, all in service of an irresistible surname. American Republicans will froth at this vision of Democrats surrendering their moral upper hand for the sake of a teetering dynasty, but the reality is Chappaquiddick plays best as a metaphor for the easy, regular compromises being made in service of another infamous, modern political empire. (See: literally the news every day.)

Allen and Logan have littered the picture with comparisons to The Godfather, with Ted being told he’s "the head of the family now," though he's very much painted as a 'Fredo' here. Helms, as Joseph Gargan, plays a cousin and ‘consigliore’ to the Kennedys, and it’s he who suffers the greatest final indignity. Meanwhile, the ‘omerta’—code of silence—is embraced by the boiler room girls immediately after learning of Mary Jo’s death, with Olivia Thirlby, as Rachel, cold-bloodedly asking, "what do we do to help the senator?" It's merciless stuff.

Little is actually known about the inner-workings of the Kennedy clan in the wake of Mary Jo Kopechne’s death. And the later-in-life record of Ted, as a senator, is difficult to reconcile with the rumblings of his past. However, as inspiration for a stand-alone story for how the tantalising promise of power can send moral compasses spinning wildly, the incident on Chappaquiddick Island is fertile and irresistible.

Thanks to a strong lead performance from Clarke—who mimics the accent well, and whose square-jaw is captured by cinematographer Maryse Alberti with the glow of a screen idol gone wrong—Chappaquiddick is a powerful cautionary tale, and a reminder that people will forgive and forget anything if the surrounding news cycle is loud enough.

4/5

In Australian cinemas 10 May. Rated M for mature themes and coarse language.