After last year’s Jackie, another drama depicting a Kennedy family incident came to Toronto International Film Festival this fall. Chappaquiddick, directed by John Curran (Tracks, The Killer Inside Me), stars Jason Clarke, Kate Mara, Ed Helms, Bruce Dern, Jim Gaffigan and Taylor Nichols. It follows the infamous 1969 event in which a car went off a Massachusetts bridge, leading to the death of his campaign strategist Mary Jo Kopechne, and a cover-up ensued. Ahead of a release in April, the first trailer and poster has now landed.
“I’m not certain if the truth ever came out about that evening’s events beyond speculation, but I don’t think anyone would question the believably authentic script that Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan wrote for Chappaquiddick,” Jared Mobarak said in our review. “They depict that night with the melancholy and hopelessness Ted (Jason Clarke) would have felt so soon after the death of his third brother. It was a time of self-reflection rather than political aspiration, one forcing him to question how far he wanted to go. Was the Senate enough? Was he fighting for his brothers’ legacies, his father’s (Bruce Dern’s Joe Kennedy Sr) ambition, or his own desire? Add some alcohol and the faces of Bobby’s former secretaries surrounding him with optimism that he could persevere and you can imagine the dark, haunted thoughts he’d have.”
See the trailer and poster below:
Nearly five decades ago, on July 18, 1969, a car went off the Dike Bridge on the island of Chappaquiddick. The driver, Ted Kennedy escaped. His 28-year-old passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, did not. An upcoming movie, Chappaquiddick, attempts to tell the story of what happened that night and why it took Kennedy some ten hours to report the accident to the local Edgartown police.
Chappaquiddick opens on April 6, 2018.