September 15, 2025 • 39 mins
In 1969, a young Ted Kennedy drove his car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts, leading to the death of a young woman in the passenger seat named Mary Jo Kopechne. For this month’s Kennedy movie episode, we’re joined by Jason Concepcion, co-host of the X-Ray Vision podcast, to talk about the baffling 2018 film ‘Chappaquiddick,’ which attempts to depict the infamous incident and its aftermath — with mixed results.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
What do you remember about the movie chap Aquatic.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, it took me right back to the event itself.
I remember the breaking news. I remember my mother saying,
of course he killed that girl. I remember the actor
portraying Ted Kennedy, how he was doing all the things
that he did, and he was able to get away
with the doll. Everybody accepted his cover up.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Which I wasn't surprised by the power that the wealthy
people have and that people in power have over to citizens.
I remember how insane it seemed that he could just
go to a motel and then just walk out of
there and go have breakfast and be on the phone
things like that.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
I'm George Severis, I'm Lyarra Smith, and this.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
Is United States of Kennedy, a podcast about our cultural
fascination with the Kennedy Dynasty. Every week we go into
one aspect of the Kennedy story, and today we are
talking about the twenty eighteen movie chap Equittic. So you
might be familiar with the events that happened on chap
Equittic Island, which we covered in our second episode. So
if you haven't listened, you can go back and listen
(01:29):
to that first because the events are complicated, and I'm
not even going into the various conspiracy theories. But today
we are talking about the movie. The twenty eighteen movie chap.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Equittic, directed by John Curran, starring Jason Clark and Kate Mara.
Chap Equittick depicts the most popular version of the events
of July eighteenth, nineteen sixty nine, when Ted Kennedy drove
his car into poach Upon and left Marry Joe Kopecne
in the submerged car. He never alerted authorities, and her
body was found in the car the following morning.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
Jason Clark as Ted Kennedy spends the rest of the
movie trying to save his political career, while the death
of Mary Jokopecne quickly becomes just another Kennedy crisis to
be solved by a team of fixers.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
And spoiler alert of sorts. We did not love this movie.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
One thing I will say about this movie is that
there are actors in it and they are saying lines
and no one can ever take that away from them.
It was a movie that has a beginning, a middle,
and an end, and Kate Mara is phenomenal in it.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
And so is it helms that's true. Helping us dissect
the movie today is Jason Concepcion, writer, critic, and host
of the podcast X ray Vision. Jason, thanks for joining
us today.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
We are really excited to talk about the movie chap
Equittic with you.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
What an uplifting film, Yes, an uplifting film. It maybe
believe most of all in the power of the movies.
I do want to get into the movie because at
first I thought I would have nothing to say about it,
and I really struggled to come up with cohering questions
because the experience of watching this movie feel is like
you are in the process of watching it and you're like,
should we put a movie on you? Forget that you're
(03:10):
actually watching a movie. Yeah. So I want to get
into that, but before we do, I want to first
talk about the relationship of the film and the real
world events of chap Equittic. So Larry and I a
few months ago did an episode on the actual events
of Chepiquittic. We had an expert on we like did
all our research. I would say it's one of those
events where the more you read about it, the less
(03:32):
sure you are what happened, and so this movie is
as good a take as any. But I'm wondering, like,
what did you think of the adaptation of real life
events as an adaptation?
Speaker 4 (03:42):
You know, I found it to kind of briefly touch
on your comments about being the type of movie where
you're watching it and want to put a movie on.
I thought it interesting the choices that the filmmaker decided
to make with regards to depicting the death of Mary
Jo Kopecney by drowning in this vehicle driven by Ted
(04:06):
Theodore Kennedy, and the kind of unwillingness to make decisions
about anything else that I think would be kind of interesting.
You know, I don't know. I think the Kennedy's are
really interesting. If you know nothing about Chapiquittic, this could
have been any guy. He could be a banker, he
could be a famous film director, he could be just
(04:27):
any rich guy. And so I guess I think that
this was as good a take as any, And I
agree with you. It's one of those things where it's
Ted and her. She died in the incident and Ted
was shitfaced, So what do you really know? And so
I thought the scenes depicting Mary Joe's tragic death were
I felt probably the most affecting stuff actually in the movie,
(04:52):
the only thing that I was responding to. I'm not
going to say I responded positively to the emotional impact
of it, but it was the only thing where I'm
leaning in and going Okay, maybe that's the way it happened. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
One of my questions for the group is going to
be is the filmmaker making a point? What point is
he making?
Speaker 4 (05:12):
I don't know. I think if mister Kurran had a point,
he might have forgotten what it was, or it might
have gotten so lost in the Don't piss Off Anybody
instincts from the studio and others that it got lost.
I'm not sure what the point is. I guess the
point was here is a talented guy who killed someone
(05:33):
and then ruined his career in the process. But which
is interesting about the Kennedys is why we know all
the stuff about the dad and him being a bootlegger
and John F. Kennedy and the mistresses and the drinking
and YadA, YadA YadA. Why do they want to be
in public life? Like? Why do they Is he good
at it? Did he have some kind of greater beliefs
in democracy in the United State. YadA, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
You never get that.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
I don't know anything about this guy, and so well,
I don't know. I left this movie confused about what
we just did.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Yeah, just to summarize, really, because we've talked about Chepiquitic
on a previous episode, we got a new to me
at the time theory or presentation of the series of events.
But just so you know, anyone who hasn't seen this movie,
what is depicted in the movie is they're having the party,
(06:27):
Ted and Mary Joe leave to go talk, and then
they're in a car and then he's driving really fast.
It's not even super clear as to why he's driving
really fast. They're spotted by a cop, but there isn't
a problem. He just starts driving like a bat out
of hell, crashes into the pond, and then leaves her there,
(06:50):
goes back to the party, gets his cousin slash lawyer,
gets his friend, They try to get her out, it
doesn't happen, and then Ted walks through the next few hours.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Well.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
They tell him that he should report it to the police.
He tells them he will, but doesn't.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Take and then eight or nine hours for him, and.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
Then the body is discovered by passers by, and then
they discover that the car is registered under Ted Kennedy's name.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So that's the version of events that is being portrayed
in this movie is kind of the classic story of chepiquidit.
We've heard some other versions, just so anybody who hasn't
seen it knows that's what.
Speaker 5 (07:28):
And also it endorses the idea that she maybe didn't
drown but in fact in the air bubble. Yes, because
there was an air bubble and she theoretically there's a
chance she could have been saved if Ted had gone
and sought help earlier, which is of course people that
are mad at Ted Kennedy say that he was responsible
(07:50):
for her death two times over, once for crashing the
car and twice for What.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Are your thoughts on that? From my perspective, whether she
died in the air bubble or she died by drowning,
we're thin slicing it. Now. It's like his fault.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
I mean, he was drunk driving and drove a car
off a bridge, So it's sort of.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Like it's involuntary manslaughter.
Speaker 5 (08:11):
For sure, it's so, but reading engages what's interesting about
this movie. One of our last movie episodes was about
Oliver Stone's JFK, and Oliver Stones JFK does something very different,
which is that it really goes all in on the
conspiracy theorizing, which is like enjoyable and thrilling to watch
even if you don't buy the conspiracy theory because it's
just made in this coked out crazy way. This movie
(08:34):
is almost the opposite, where it is very careful not
to go into conspiracy theorizing, so much so that it
ends up being like a straightforward chronological account of events.
And I wish this filmmaker was crazier. I wish she
had some crazy theory.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Literally thought to myself, I wish Oliver Stone had directed this.
Speaker 5 (08:53):
But I do want to go back to your point, Jason,
about the mystery at the core of who Ted Kennedy is.
Because we know that this fan is committed to being
public servants, is committed to politics, So why what is
the reason why? And I actually think on paper, the
portrayal of Ted Kennedy is interesting in terms of those
questions because he basically says I was not the chosen son,
(09:16):
which was Joe Kennedy. Junior. I was not the charismatic one,
which was Jack, but I'm the only one you have,
and so this is the best you're going to get.
And there is something just cinematic and tragic about that.
If done well, somehow, it doesn't quite land.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
I agree with you. That's a scene of him just
saying who he is. It would have been nice to
see that played out in some sort of scene where
get an understanding of him, but that never appears.
Speaker 5 (09:42):
No, the closest we get is the fact that he
is just passive and not canny the entire time. You
do get the sense that he's not a good politician,
so to speak. And I think what makes the whole
thing even more interesting, and this is not the movie
just Ted Kennedy as a person, is that he's portray
is the least charismatic and the least talented of the bunch,
and yet he is the one that had the longest
(10:05):
and most consequential political career, like sure, undoubtedly the fourth
longest serving member of the Senate, as we were informed
by the end credits. So there is something interesting about that,
And you're like, just give me something.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
I kept coming back to it. My first note was
so who are then? Who are they? Again? This could
have been a story about any person, any powerful person.
And by the way, have you done Thirteen Days yet?
Speaker 5 (10:31):
No? No, but it is on our list.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
I think Thirteen Days might be the one because you
know it's jfk and Roberts, so he's the Attorney General
at the time, so you get an idea of what
they're like together. But I think it's the only one
where you get the sense of who they are, And
that's the only thing that's interesting to me, the only
real mystery about the Kennedys. Who the fuck are these weirdos?
(10:55):
What drives them? They've been around for so long? Why
do they want to serve the pub Do they have
any beliefs that they actually hold on to dearly? And
you get that they're ambitious, and in this movie, he's
telling you that he's ambitious and that people have a
lot invested in his success. But you never get into
the interior of the person. And that's the same with
(11:18):
every single Kennedy film depiction on film, and it's very
frustrating to me.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah, there's just so many scenes that are him silently
alone thinking maybe, yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
Well he loves burying his head in his hands. That's
sort of this classic signature move.
Speaker 6 (11:38):
We're going to take a short break, stay with.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Us, and we're back with the United States of Kennedy.
Speaker 5 (11:54):
It's funny because, again, a lot of what we're describing
is by design. It just doesn't land like. It is
true that he's meant to be this cowardly, tragic figure.
It is true that he is indecisive, he doesn't stand
for anything. He is, as we learn in the very
first scene of him being interviewed, he's in the shadow
of his brother. He's not meant to be a hero
we're rooting for, but then he's not quite the villain,
(12:16):
and so you're like, okay, well, if just narratively speaking,
if he's not our hero or our villain, then we
need some other big, bombastic personality, Like we need someone
like Joe Peshi and JFK that comes in and does
something that we can sort of like grasp onto.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
At one point I wrote down, who is the protagonist? Yes,
it's like such a silly question, but I did feel
that way watching it. It's so dryly depicted that he
is the bad guy. He's greedy. I mean, I don't
know if greedy is exactly the right word, but ambitious
to the point of just wanting power without caring about
(12:57):
other people. I mean, this is how he's being pretty
presented based on his reaction to killing someone.
Speaker 5 (13:03):
But I also think he's being presented as a son
trying to please his dad, Like I don't think he's
some ambition.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Well, as I'm saying, it's like, this is what it's
supposed to be, I believe portraying in all of the
second half of the movie, while his focus just becomes
how do I get out of this? How do I
just save my political career? And then you see him
(13:29):
losing all of his emotional and familial connections to anyone
else around him that he had in the beginning. But
it's just so neutral on it.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
I completely back to the point about there being no stance.
Here's a stance. I think Ted Kennedy had a uplifting
vision for the United States that he really cared about,
and when he was going to be present, he was
going to pull set of it whatever and make the
(14:02):
country better. And the tragedy, in addition to the death
of Mary Joe, is that he threw that all away
on this drunken evening. That's a take. Another take is
Ted Kennedy was a piece of shit who we dodged
one with Chap equittic because he would have been a
piece of shit president. But instead we don't know, like
there is no stance in that regard, and it does
(14:25):
feel to me as if, shockingly in the middle of
the film they want to make it about fathers and
sons and pleasing Dad. And that is the point where
the movie veers dangerously towards comedy, the reveal of Bruce
Dern when they wheel him out. I'm sorry, but I
was laughing.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
Yeah, I know. It's tough because there's also so many
opportunities to have other slightly comedic or humorous elements. I mean,
you have Ed Helms and Jim Gaffigan, like ratchet up
those performances and have the various goons, the various Kennedy
hanger ons be more big and campy and interesting. You
can have one person telling Tim to do this thing
and the other person telling him to do this thing,
(15:03):
and they're both kind of stereotypical Boston guys or something,
but they're actually all giving pretty grounded performances for what
they are. So then when you get Bruce Derton drooling,
you can't help but be like, finally someone's committing.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
What's going for it? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (15:16):
Yeah, But yet it doesn't land as the dramatic moment
that it's supposed to be.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
I did think ed Helms was really good.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
I thought I thought all the actors were perfectly competent.
What frustrated me about this movie is that there's an
uncanny Valley like quality to it, because everything is almost good.
The main guy looks like he almost is a famous actor.
It's shot in a way that implies it could be
a big Oscar movie. There are stakes, it's about historical figures.
It's competently made, it's competently acted, and yet at every
(15:46):
point you're like, oh, give me thirty percent more.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
The way that it is shot, the way that it
is framed in most scenes, was confusing to me. It's
a shot that I think is supposed to mean something,
but I couldn't understand what it is. The camera it's
almost like everyone's chest is the bottom of the frame
and the camera is at a bit of an angle,
(16:11):
tilted back, and they do it over and over and
over again. Anytime there's an individual just delivering a line
to a group of people, which happens like every other
scene the police chief ted ed Helms. It happens over
and over again, and the way that it's shot, I
kept thinking, why, what does that mean? What am I
(16:31):
supposed to think? And I'm still lost on what that
choice was.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
I think it goes back to what both of you
were saying about the lack of commitment to a vision
like this movie almost feels like it was made to
be shown in schools to teach kids about historical creth.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
That's a great comp.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
To what end, because it's not like, Oh, they sanitize
it because they didn't want to upset the Kennedy's. The
Kennedy family was upset. The right wing commentators did embrace
the movie like anything you would try to change it
to avoid did happen. So the only thing that the
tampering of the drama did was make sure that the
movie bombed.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
The first thing that I do after every movie that
I watch is go to Reddit and just see what
people thought. And what was interesting about this was that
I could find so few posts about it, and all
of them, except for one or two, was a conservative group,
like some conservative subreddit, and They all were saying, finally
(17:29):
Hollywood goes after the Democrats for once.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
You know.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
It was like this weird triumphant thing to them, that
this true story was told, as if that's not what
happens in historical dramas.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Everything.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
Yeah, but the response to this movie was that it
was embraced by a certain right wing people like Rush
Limbaugh talked about it a lot, whatever. And then as
a response to that, there was some sort of finger
wagging on the left where there was an op ed
in the Times by Neil Gabbler, who wrote a biography
of Ted Kennedy, and he was like, this movie is
(18:04):
sensationalist and it spreads these lies and conspiracy theories. And
I read that this morning. I was like, if only, yeah,
I wish, you know, we would it was age. Yeah,
So it's this funny thing where the right wing commentators
just will latch onto anything that seems like it's for
their cause. And then a couple of people basically fell
for the bait and felt the needs of disown the
(18:26):
film or defend it or whatever. And then meanwhile audiences
didn't care.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah, it's not worth it.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
It's a boring movie that repeats three core scenes again
and again, Ted alone sitting with his head in his
hands or staring at something and you don't know what
he's thinking. Ted addressing the room full of guys who
he's like, how do I get out of this one
guys and they're pitching him ideas, and then they're outside
(18:54):
around where the accident is. That's basically every scene in
this movie, to the point that if you look away
and come back, you're like, do we go somewhere else
and come back to this or is this still going?
I came away feeling the chronological decision is really strange
to me. I came away feeling like they should have
Birdman this movie one shot from the evening and the
(19:14):
accident all the way through, right, So I am arguing
with the people now. The tension is building just by
the fact that you're watching this without any cuts, but
the fact that they cut but still went chronologically. It
gives you this formless, void of a feeling of a
movie with no acts and no beginning and no end
(19:35):
that just keeps.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
Going totally No. It felt like it was honestly trying
to avoid cliches and sensationalism to a fault, because there
are many sort of cliche ways you could frame it. There's,
for example, a very obvious one is to do an
interview with Ted Kennedy and then flashbacks as he's doing
the interview. That's actually what they did for Pablo Laurian's Jackie,
which we just discussed a couple of weeks ago. You
(19:56):
could have it be jumping back and forth and play
with time. Could have it told from different perspectives and
have the cliche be that everyone had a different experience
of this event. You could do Marry Joe's perspective and
test pro secutor. They were trying to avoid formal cliches
to such an extent that they ended up just presenting
everything in the most straightforward way, and I honestly think
(20:17):
that also happened with the performances, and and that's why
there are no interest, because they were like, we don't
want it to be a giant speech that feels too
cliche or to oscary, so instead we're going to have
everyone talk in hi monotone and not really say anything
that dramatic, which, as we said, made the Bruce Den
thing even more ridiculous because when you have him being
like Alibi, like right within a movie that makes no
(20:41):
other no other big decisions like that, Like it's gonna
sound ridiculous. The alibi think would have not sounded ridiculous
if you had a bunch of people, you know, Grant
standing in every scene.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yeah, yeah, Because also that is one of the fabrications
of this movie, is that at this point in time,
Joe Kennedy Senior, he couldn't speak anymore. He was not
able to be a part of the decision making here.
He'd had a stroke and he was just a couple
months away from passing away. So to make that one
(21:10):
big decision to fabricate his involvement and then have it
be his Rosebud, his reverse Rosebud, I guesst or whatever
is alibi, and then not even exploring that. Then Ted's
big attempt to get an alibi is he asks somebody
what time it is.
Speaker 6 (21:27):
That's a really funny way to get.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Out assembles the brain trust and it's just bad. Guys.
How do I get out of this one? Guys?
Speaker 5 (21:33):
I know, all right, I'm very aware of the fact
that we're all sort of piling on this movie. So
I want to give us a challenge, and I have
an answer for myself Is there anything we liked about
this movie? What did we appreciate?
Speaker 1 (21:42):
I liked that Elliott Page's two ex girlfriends were in
it together, and I thought about that though.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
Oh my god, that's true. Yet Wow, Yes, it was
nice to see Olivia Thurlby, someone I only associate with Dreuneau.
So I would say mine is that. I actually felt
that the portrayal of Mary Joe was one of the
stronger parts of the movie, and I thought there was
a very conscious decision to give her personality when we
saw her on screen, which then made the Kennedy's dealings
(22:12):
with her after the fact seem even more evil because
they are just treating her as like a problem to
be solved. Not a single one of them is speaking
about her as though she's an individual with a personality,
with a history. All of them allegedly were friendly with her,
she worked for Bobby, and they're speaking about her in
such a cold, distant way, And I think that really
does land you, know at times, because you have experienced
(22:35):
her in the beginning of someone with a complicated relationship
to her job and to this family and to politics. Talented, Yes,
if anything, she's like not after yeah, yeah, job in
her few scenes, she is in a weird way, the
most complex character, which, to be clear, is not saying
a lot in this movie, but she is someone who
(22:58):
is wrestling with a lot. She's not just a symbol
of innocent, beautiful brunette.
Speaker 6 (23:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Well, Also, the first conversation about the evening is there
is no party without the girls, and Ted is very
concerned about making sure that they have a way onto
the island, and someone's making sure that they get settled.
And then the party is supposed to be thinking them
a bit. I mean, that's the way it's presented. His
(23:22):
speech is just saying we're all family now, which is,
you know, they were very important to him when they
were working for his family. And then the second that, yeah,
he murdered one of them, they're not any cause the
DEATHA yeah, cause the DEATHA sure, I know it's not murder.
It certainly feels murderish.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
Oh sure.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
You know.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
There's a level of cowardice to the whole affair that
is unseemly for anyone, and certainly for someone who deems
to be in a leadership position at that level or
at any level. It's cowardly in a way that I
think is existentially disgusting. I think the performances were good.
I do agree that I think that everybody performed competentently.
(24:06):
I agree with you that you get the sense that
they never really let anybody off the reins like you wanted,
like do I want to see ed Helms playing it
straight and going yad every like other the habit you know,
every couple of lines of dialogue. I will say that
that beginning seeing the party because a good job of
giving you a sense of why you would attach yourselves
(24:29):
to this family. You know of how a person's ambitions
might lead you to a position like that, and the
sense of playing a larger political game by being associated
with them, And you never get the same to your
point about like, she's not the kind of like innocent,
wide eyed person. You get the sense that she understands
(24:51):
who they are's clear eyed about what her job is,
and she's trying to get the most out of it
by playing this game. And so that I thought was
probably the most interesting part of the film.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
We'll be back with more United States of Kennedy after
this break.
Speaker 6 (25:17):
And we're back with the United States of Kennedy.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
I think the idealism of the Kennedys seems to have
died with Jack and Bobby, and this movie is a
depiction of what's left. Everything just seems like everyone's running
on fumes, and I think you sort of get that
at the party, like they're all happy to be with
one another, but it also has a mournful undercurrent.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
The other thing about the party that nobody mentions in
this movie that I wish they had because it would
have been more interesting, is that every single man there
is married.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
There is another way where this filmmaker was trying to
be even keeled and not be unfair to anyone, because
there's a world where you shoot that party as like
a debaucherous, sure crazy event where all these men or
hitting a drunk men or hitting on these young women,
and they don't do that, and you're sort of like, okay, well,
at least paint a picture.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Yeah, it would have been something to watch. This is
what I was saying before we started recording. You know,
this movie is not terrible, and that is almost worse.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
Yes, I agree, it's really bad. Yeah, there's nothing worse
than a safe movie. Yeah, particularly a safe movie about
something where somebody died and a ascendant political career that
had the I mean, you could, I think, reasonably make
the case that this event changed the course of history, right,
and then to make a safe movie about that is like,
(26:38):
why what are we doing?
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Well?
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Any episode of mad Men is better than this.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
It could have used a little more mad Men. Yes,
it could have really leaned into the period piece drama
camp of it all.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Well.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
I was kept thinking because at first I did not
think they were going to show her in the car.
That doesn't happen for a little while after the accident,
and I thought that was it. They were going to
explore that theory that she was alive in the car
for a while. But then when they started showing it,
I was thinking about how Joyce Carol Oates wrote a
short story that was inspired by chap Equittic that some
(27:12):
people say was the thing that brought it back into
the collective memory. And that entire story takes place in
the time that she's drowning. Yeah, and it's flashbacks and
it's her thought and it's all of her thoughts leading
up to the accident and where she's going. You know,
(27:33):
the whole story takes place in that time that she's
drowning in the car, and that's so cinematic, and that's
a you know, a short story, you know, but then
to watch the movie and it have it be so
not cinematic.
Speaker 5 (27:47):
Yeah, and the story is called Blackwater. It's a novella.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
You know what I thought they were going to do
when they because I agree with you, that was that
was gripping stuff to watch. It really really harrowing. I
thought what they were gonna do was, Okay, we've shown
you this horrendous way, this drawn out way, where you understand,
she understands what's happening, what's going to happen, and she's
so afraid. And then I thought they were going to
(28:11):
mirror that with Kennedy looking for exits. I'm looking for
a way out of this, but the walls are closing
in and it's all constricting on me, and in the end,
I'm trapped in this isolated bubble by myself. And instead
the movie just kind of lets go of you after
this drawn out death scene and then when they show
you the body again as if to say, don't forget
(28:32):
this happened. And then I thought, Okay, well they're not
going to do that, but they're going to have these flashbacks,
so you understand the guilt is weighing on him.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
And then they let go of that too.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
No, but it was.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
But there's a moment in that first quarter of a
movie where you're thinking, Oh, there's interesting avenues that this
can go.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
I also going back to my question of who's the protagonist.
At one point I wrote down what's the climax?
Speaker 5 (28:57):
I would say, maybe they want the climax to be
Joe slapping ted in a way I.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Felt like maybe it was very Yet when he's deciding
which speech the King's speech, it, Yeah, it felt like
they had.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Three choices, and the three choices were confrontation with Dad,
and it felt like, oh, it could be this, but
then they chickened out, and then it was gonna be
King's speech. Can he select the correct truth telling speech? Right?
And then it was gonna be reunion with Dad, not
the confrontation, but like I've got his love back and
I understand why he sent me on this path. And
(29:34):
then it's it's like none of those, Yeah, what was it?
Speaker 5 (29:38):
Yeah? The way to combine all of those is to
make it almost like a systems movie, which is sort
of what JFK was. It's about a network of different
people that each have different motives and are each lying
to some extent to further their own agendas whatever. But
the different people don't really connect, and it all feels
very disjointed. And there are parts when all of the
(30:02):
brain trust, as you say, are in the war room
and you're like, Okay, let's get this going. Let's get
a conversation going where everyone's talking over one another and
one person is yelling at this person, the other person's
accusing them, and it just ends. And then you go
to Joe and he's drooling and he's slapping his son. Okay,
all right, So I want to talk a little bit,
and especially with you, because I feel like you will
(30:23):
have a good take on the industry side of this.
I want to talk about the fallout and the legacy
of this movie, because this is a movie that really
affected the careers of its writers and its director, and
arguably its lead actor in a pretty severe way. Because
there is a world in which this movie was a success,
and these writers went on to write a bunch of
(30:44):
other political thrillers. The director went on to direct more
high profile projects. Jason Clark is that his name? The
lead like Jason Clark went because he's a clearly he's
in a lot of stuff, but he's like a working
character actor in B plus rate movies. But the writers
have not gotten another film produced since then. The director
hasn't done much. One of the things that I wrote
(31:07):
down because of added to the weird uncanny equality of it,
is that the production company is called Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures,
and I looked them up and they also have only
produced weird movies no one has ever heard of.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Also, the logo of Yes in the opening, it's like
from I.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
Don't know's ting to video?
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Microsoft were default, like in nineteen ninety eight. You opened
it up and you're like, you need a logo for
a movie studio? Here you go, this is it.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
Yeah, So what is your take on these filmmakers. I
don't think that.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
The downswing in the careers of the various people associated
with this is necessarily due to anything more complex than
they made a very high profile bad movie.
Speaker 5 (31:58):
Yeah, you can.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
Make a regular bad but if you're going to make
a bad, boring movie and you're taking a huge shot
with chap equittic, then you do run the risk of
movie jail. Now, I will say just looking at it,
you see the red flags in retrospect. I don't know
that this director was clearly the right guy for this.
I don't know that Jason Clark is you know, Ed
(32:19):
Helm's probably more famous than him. I think it's really
as simple as they made a bad, boring film that
caused a lot of controversy, and that is kind of
a recipe for career jail. I think in the entertainment industry,
or at least you know, people in this have worked again.
(32:39):
But I think it's as simple as that they made
a bad, high profile film that was controversial.
Speaker 5 (32:45):
Yeah, because I remember it being controversial, and then I
was trying to find proof that it was controversial other
than the right wing fear mongering and the opit and whatever.
I could have sworn that this movie was like a
punchline like online, and I was trying to find proof
of it, and I couldn't. It's almost like it never existed,
and I incepted myself. I know it was a moderate flop,
like it was I'm seeing here now. It had a
(33:07):
budget of thirty four million in the box office was
eighteen million. That is that's obviously not great, but it's
not the biggest flop in the history of film. It
almost I think maybe it was controversial if you were
in the industry and knew what was going on, and
then for everyone else that just like didn't make an impact,
Like it is a completely forgotten movie.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
Yeah. And I also think, you know what was this twenty.
Speaker 5 (33:29):
It was May and twenty seventeen, and then we found
out it was supposed to be released for Oscar season,
and then it got pushed to twenty eighteen, so it
actually is technically a twenty eighteen release.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
I think it's several things. I think people, certainly by
twenty eighteen and continuing today, are like, can I just
go to the movies and not do politics?
Speaker 5 (33:47):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (33:48):
I think you're also talking about the last crusting of
the comic book movie Waves, so nobody fucking gave a
shit about this adult, mid budget historical drama.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
I agree with you. I understand it was controversial, and
I understand that a lot of right wing ideologues were
really crowing about this movie. I also remember not thinking
about this movie at all.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
Yeah. I had sort of an aha moment when you
were just saying that people didn't want politics on screen,
because I think, on the one hand, you are obviously
right that there was a politics fatigue, but on the
other hand, almost the opposite was also true, in that
with the first years of the first Trump administration, people
did want a certain kind of political media, but they
(34:32):
wanted it to be really preachy and either angry or
super inspirational. They wanted the black and white narrative that
made you stand up and say, we're not going to
take this anymore. Like I think a movie that villainized
Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party has always been this
way in Trump, you know, I think the major flaw
of this movie in terms of the timing, was that
(34:54):
it didn't take any big stance in an era when
all people wanted was to be angry about try.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
One might call that a point of view, yes exactly, Yeah,
you know, perspective, a point of view, a take.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
I completely agree. You know. I think Thirteen Hours in
Benghazi came out before the Michael Bay, yes propagandistic action
movie about the events in Benghazi during the lad Obama administration,
and I will say, politically terrible, like all Michael Bay films,
very watchable and exciting film, and you wish they would
(35:28):
have just like drizzled some hot sauce into this film
and give us something man, make it like from the
perspective of Mary Joe, she's a ghost, do something crazy, man,
piss me off. Yeah, other than looking at my watch.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
And even the Mary Joe element of it, it's funny
like these were very black and white political times, like
the early Trump earrat. Truly, you look back on it
now and you cannot believe that it was so recent.
But the two things that were very much, especially for
left of center liberal audience, the two things they cared
about politically were Trump and the Me Too movement. This
actually has the potential to touch on both of those things.
It's about political corruption. It's about a woman that was
(36:05):
discarded and not for dead and literally laftford head by
a man in power. I'm not saying I would have
loved it if it was a movie that was super
preachy and black and white. But I'm like, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
I think that I think we keep selecting the wrong protagonist.
This movie should have been about Mary Joe. You follow
her throughout the day. She's talking about her aspirations, what
she's hoping to do in her career, in her life
and then it's tragically cut short. I just recently read
a book about one of the diplomats that his name
(36:37):
is tally Rand. He worked for the French government under
the Late Revolution, Napoleon when the king came back, and
then the government after they deposed the king, and the
whole time it was because everybody hated him he was corrupt,
but they also were like, fuck, we need to get
this guy back. And I kept going like, why don't
we make a movie about this guy and not Napoleon?
And I feel the same way about this, like this
(36:58):
should be her movie.
Speaker 5 (37:00):
Yeah, to that exact point, it made me appreciate the
movie Jackie more than I did when we first saw
a couple of weeks ago, because that's exactly what they
did there. I mean, obviously, Jackie Oh is a much
more well known figure than Mary Joe Kopecnie. But they
took this event whose protagonist is undoubtedly John F. Kennedy,
not Jackie, and they told it through a different perspective,
through this technically passive viewer of the events that were happening,
(37:23):
and put her front and center.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
There's a really strong voice to it. It's very recognizable
as Pablo Loraine. A person could not like it, a
person could have a criticism of it, but that criticism
would be because of choices that were made, like strong choices.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
And this is exactly why I think both of us
were struggling to come up with questions. And it's like,
you don't know what your reaction is to something that
isn't positing something.
Speaker 4 (37:50):
Yes, it's just kind of like, here's what happened, I
have no thoughts on it, and then we walk away.
I will say that I think that to your question
about industry reactions, I think probably this movie doesn't get
made if you write a script about Mary jer Kopecney. Right,
you know, like whatever the name of the studio is,
I forget.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Movie Picture entertain Studios Pictures.
Speaker 4 (38:12):
They're gonna go, I'm going to give you thirty million
dollars to make a movie about No, you got to
make it about Ted, because nobody knows who married your
like the Ted Kennedy, the Kennedy's and all of those things.
I think here the a boring movie.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
I feel like we've ragged on it so much that
the three of us need to write the married Joe
Kopecne version of chepi quick. I know, I mean, and
get on that blacklist.
Speaker 5 (38:35):
Yes, just like these two writers are on the blacklist
and now they haven't made a movie in ten years.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Jason, thank you so much.
Speaker 5 (38:41):
Jason, thank you so much. This was so much fun.
And thank you for humoring us and rewatching one of
the most weird movies of the last ten years.
Speaker 4 (38:49):
I excited to get your reactions, to hear your reactions
to thirteen Days.
Speaker 5 (38:54):
Oh my god, we can't wait. Maybe we'll have you back.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
The United States of Kennedy is hosted by me Lyra
Smith and George Severes. Original music by Joshua Tepalski, mixing
and mastering by Graham Gibson and Doug Bame.
Speaker 5 (39:07):
Research by Dave Rus and Austin Thompson. Our executive producer
is Jenna Cagele. United States of Kennedy is a production
of iHeart Podcasts. Next week we're talking about the criminal
trial of William Kennedy Smith and its NonStop coverage on
Core TV that changed the media landscape forever.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
So subscribe and follow United States of Kennedy for all
things Kennedy every week
What do you remember about the movie chap Aquatic.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, it took me right back to the event itself.
I remember the breaking news. I remember my mother saying,
of course he killed that girl. I remember the actor
portraying Ted Kennedy, how he was doing all the things
that he did, and he was able to get away
with the doll. Everybody accepted his cover up.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Which I wasn't surprised by the power that the wealthy
people have and that people in power have over to citizens.
I remember how insane it seemed that he could just
go to a motel and then just walk out of
there and go have breakfast and be on the phone
things like that.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
I'm George Severis, I'm Lyarra Smith, and this.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
Is United States of Kennedy, a podcast about our cultural
fascination with the Kennedy Dynasty. Every week we go into
one aspect of the Kennedy story, and today we are
talking about the twenty eighteen movie chap Equittic. So you
might be familiar with the events that happened on chap
Equittic Island, which we covered in our second episode. So
if you haven't listened, you can go back and listen
(01:29):
to that first because the events are complicated, and I'm
not even going into the various conspiracy theories. But today
we are talking about the movie. The twenty eighteen movie chap.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Equittic, directed by John Curran, starring Jason Clark and Kate Mara.
Chap Equittick depicts the most popular version of the events
of July eighteenth, nineteen sixty nine, when Ted Kennedy drove
his car into poach Upon and left Marry Joe Kopecne
in the submerged car. He never alerted authorities, and her
body was found in the car the following morning.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
Jason Clark as Ted Kennedy spends the rest of the
movie trying to save his political career, while the death
of Mary Jokopecne quickly becomes just another Kennedy crisis to
be solved by a team of fixers.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
And spoiler alert of sorts. We did not love this movie.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
One thing I will say about this movie is that
there are actors in it and they are saying lines
and no one can ever take that away from them.
It was a movie that has a beginning, a middle,
and an end, and Kate Mara is phenomenal in it.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
And so is it helms that's true. Helping us dissect
the movie today is Jason Concepcion, writer, critic, and host
of the podcast X ray Vision. Jason, thanks for joining
us today.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
We are really excited to talk about the movie chap
Equittic with you.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
What an uplifting film, Yes, an uplifting film. It maybe
believe most of all in the power of the movies.
I do want to get into the movie because at
first I thought I would have nothing to say about it,
and I really struggled to come up with cohering questions
because the experience of watching this movie feel is like
you are in the process of watching it and you're like,
should we put a movie on you? Forget that you're
(03:10):
actually watching a movie. Yeah. So I want to get
into that, but before we do, I want to first
talk about the relationship of the film and the real
world events of chap Equittic. So Larry and I a
few months ago did an episode on the actual events
of Chepiquittic. We had an expert on we like did
all our research. I would say it's one of those
events where the more you read about it, the less
(03:32):
sure you are what happened, and so this movie is
as good a take as any. But I'm wondering, like,
what did you think of the adaptation of real life
events as an adaptation?
Speaker 4 (03:42):
You know, I found it to kind of briefly touch
on your comments about being the type of movie where
you're watching it and want to put a movie on.
I thought it interesting the choices that the filmmaker decided
to make with regards to depicting the death of Mary
Jo Kopecney by drowning in this vehicle driven by Ted
(04:06):
Theodore Kennedy, and the kind of unwillingness to make decisions
about anything else that I think would be kind of interesting.
You know, I don't know. I think the Kennedy's are
really interesting. If you know nothing about Chapiquittic, this could
have been any guy. He could be a banker, he
could be a famous film director, he could be just
(04:27):
any rich guy. And so I guess I think that
this was as good a take as any, And I
agree with you. It's one of those things where it's
Ted and her. She died in the incident and Ted
was shitfaced, So what do you really know? And so
I thought the scenes depicting Mary Joe's tragic death were
I felt probably the most affecting stuff actually in the movie,
(04:52):
the only thing that I was responding to. I'm not
going to say I responded positively to the emotional impact
of it, but it was the only thing where I'm
leaning in and going Okay, maybe that's the way it happened. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
One of my questions for the group is going to
be is the filmmaker making a point? What point is
he making?
Speaker 4 (05:12):
I don't know. I think if mister Kurran had a point,
he might have forgotten what it was, or it might
have gotten so lost in the Don't piss Off Anybody
instincts from the studio and others that it got lost.
I'm not sure what the point is. I guess the
point was here is a talented guy who killed someone
(05:33):
and then ruined his career in the process. But which
is interesting about the Kennedys is why we know all
the stuff about the dad and him being a bootlegger
and John F. Kennedy and the mistresses and the drinking
and YadA, YadA YadA. Why do they want to be
in public life? Like? Why do they Is he good
at it? Did he have some kind of greater beliefs
in democracy in the United State. YadA, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
You never get that.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
I don't know anything about this guy, and so well,
I don't know. I left this movie confused about what
we just did.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Yeah, just to summarize, really, because we've talked about Chepiquitic
on a previous episode, we got a new to me
at the time theory or presentation of the series of events.
But just so you know, anyone who hasn't seen this movie,
what is depicted in the movie is they're having the party,
(06:27):
Ted and Mary Joe leave to go talk, and then
they're in a car and then he's driving really fast.
It's not even super clear as to why he's driving
really fast. They're spotted by a cop, but there isn't
a problem. He just starts driving like a bat out
of hell, crashes into the pond, and then leaves her there,
(06:50):
goes back to the party, gets his cousin slash lawyer,
gets his friend, They try to get her out, it
doesn't happen, and then Ted walks through the next few hours.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Well.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
They tell him that he should report it to the police.
He tells them he will, but doesn't.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Take and then eight or nine hours for him, and.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
Then the body is discovered by passers by, and then
they discover that the car is registered under Ted Kennedy's name.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So that's the version of events that is being portrayed
in this movie is kind of the classic story of chepiquidit.
We've heard some other versions, just so anybody who hasn't
seen it knows that's what.
Speaker 5 (07:28):
And also it endorses the idea that she maybe didn't
drown but in fact in the air bubble. Yes, because
there was an air bubble and she theoretically there's a
chance she could have been saved if Ted had gone
and sought help earlier, which is of course people that
are mad at Ted Kennedy say that he was responsible
(07:50):
for her death two times over, once for crashing the
car and twice for What.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Are your thoughts on that? From my perspective, whether she
died in the air bubble or she died by drowning,
we're thin slicing it. Now. It's like his fault.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
I mean, he was drunk driving and drove a car
off a bridge, So it's sort of.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Like it's involuntary manslaughter.
Speaker 5 (08:11):
For sure, it's so, but reading engages what's interesting about
this movie. One of our last movie episodes was about
Oliver Stone's JFK, and Oliver Stones JFK does something very different,
which is that it really goes all in on the
conspiracy theorizing, which is like enjoyable and thrilling to watch
even if you don't buy the conspiracy theory because it's
just made in this coked out crazy way. This movie
(08:34):
is almost the opposite, where it is very careful not
to go into conspiracy theorizing, so much so that it
ends up being like a straightforward chronological account of events.
And I wish this filmmaker was crazier. I wish she
had some crazy theory.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Literally thought to myself, I wish Oliver Stone had directed this.
Speaker 5 (08:53):
But I do want to go back to your point, Jason,
about the mystery at the core of who Ted Kennedy is.
Because we know that this fan is committed to being
public servants, is committed to politics, So why what is
the reason why? And I actually think on paper, the
portrayal of Ted Kennedy is interesting in terms of those
questions because he basically says I was not the chosen son,
(09:16):
which was Joe Kennedy. Junior. I was not the charismatic one,
which was Jack, but I'm the only one you have,
and so this is the best you're going to get.
And there is something just cinematic and tragic about that.
If done well, somehow, it doesn't quite land.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
I agree with you. That's a scene of him just
saying who he is. It would have been nice to
see that played out in some sort of scene where
get an understanding of him, but that never appears.
Speaker 5 (09:42):
No, the closest we get is the fact that he
is just passive and not canny the entire time. You
do get the sense that he's not a good politician,
so to speak. And I think what makes the whole
thing even more interesting, and this is not the movie
just Ted Kennedy as a person, is that he's portray
is the least charismatic and the least talented of the bunch,
and yet he is the one that had the longest
(10:05):
and most consequential political career, like sure, undoubtedly the fourth
longest serving member of the Senate, as we were informed
by the end credits. So there is something interesting about that,
And you're like, just give me something.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
I kept coming back to it. My first note was
so who are then? Who are they? Again? This could
have been a story about any person, any powerful person.
And by the way, have you done Thirteen Days yet?
Speaker 5 (10:31):
No? No, but it is on our list.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
I think Thirteen Days might be the one because you
know it's jfk and Roberts, so he's the Attorney General
at the time, so you get an idea of what
they're like together. But I think it's the only one
where you get the sense of who they are, And
that's the only thing that's interesting to me, the only
real mystery about the Kennedys. Who the fuck are these weirdos?
(10:55):
What drives them? They've been around for so long? Why
do they want to serve the pub Do they have
any beliefs that they actually hold on to dearly? And
you get that they're ambitious, and in this movie, he's
telling you that he's ambitious and that people have a
lot invested in his success. But you never get into
the interior of the person. And that's the same with
(11:18):
every single Kennedy film depiction on film, and it's very
frustrating to me.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah, there's just so many scenes that are him silently
alone thinking maybe, yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
Well he loves burying his head in his hands. That's
sort of this classic signature move.
Speaker 6 (11:38):
We're going to take a short break, stay with.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Us, and we're back with the United States of Kennedy.
Speaker 5 (11:54):
It's funny because, again, a lot of what we're describing
is by design. It just doesn't land like. It is
true that he's meant to be this cowardly, tragic figure.
It is true that he is indecisive, he doesn't stand
for anything. He is, as we learn in the very
first scene of him being interviewed, he's in the shadow
of his brother. He's not meant to be a hero
we're rooting for, but then he's not quite the villain,
(12:16):
and so you're like, okay, well, if just narratively speaking,
if he's not our hero or our villain, then we
need some other big, bombastic personality, Like we need someone
like Joe Peshi and JFK that comes in and does
something that we can sort of like grasp onto.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
At one point I wrote down, who is the protagonist? Yes,
it's like such a silly question, but I did feel
that way watching it. It's so dryly depicted that he
is the bad guy. He's greedy. I mean, I don't
know if greedy is exactly the right word, but ambitious
to the point of just wanting power without caring about
(12:57):
other people. I mean, this is how he's being pretty
presented based on his reaction to killing someone.
Speaker 5 (13:03):
But I also think he's being presented as a son
trying to please his dad, Like I don't think he's
some ambition.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Well, as I'm saying, it's like, this is what it's
supposed to be, I believe portraying in all of the
second half of the movie, while his focus just becomes
how do I get out of this? How do I
just save my political career? And then you see him
(13:29):
losing all of his emotional and familial connections to anyone
else around him that he had in the beginning. But
it's just so neutral on it.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
I completely back to the point about there being no stance.
Here's a stance. I think Ted Kennedy had a uplifting
vision for the United States that he really cared about,
and when he was going to be present, he was
going to pull set of it whatever and make the
(14:02):
country better. And the tragedy, in addition to the death
of Mary Joe, is that he threw that all away
on this drunken evening. That's a take. Another take is
Ted Kennedy was a piece of shit who we dodged
one with Chap equittic because he would have been a
piece of shit president. But instead we don't know, like
there is no stance in that regard, and it does
(14:25):
feel to me as if, shockingly in the middle of
the film they want to make it about fathers and
sons and pleasing Dad. And that is the point where
the movie veers dangerously towards comedy, the reveal of Bruce
Dern when they wheel him out. I'm sorry, but I
was laughing.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
Yeah, I know. It's tough because there's also so many
opportunities to have other slightly comedic or humorous elements. I mean,
you have Ed Helms and Jim Gaffigan, like ratchet up
those performances and have the various goons, the various Kennedy
hanger ons be more big and campy and interesting. You
can have one person telling Tim to do this thing
and the other person telling him to do this thing,
(15:03):
and they're both kind of stereotypical Boston guys or something,
but they're actually all giving pretty grounded performances for what
they are. So then when you get Bruce Derton drooling,
you can't help but be like, finally someone's committing.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
What's going for it? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (15:16):
Yeah, But yet it doesn't land as the dramatic moment
that it's supposed to be.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
I did think ed Helms was really good.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
I thought I thought all the actors were perfectly competent.
What frustrated me about this movie is that there's an
uncanny Valley like quality to it, because everything is almost good.
The main guy looks like he almost is a famous actor.
It's shot in a way that implies it could be
a big Oscar movie. There are stakes, it's about historical figures.
It's competently made, it's competently acted, and yet at every
(15:46):
point you're like, oh, give me thirty percent more.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
The way that it is shot, the way that it
is framed in most scenes, was confusing to me. It's
a shot that I think is supposed to mean something,
but I couldn't understand what it is. The camera it's
almost like everyone's chest is the bottom of the frame
and the camera is at a bit of an angle,
(16:11):
tilted back, and they do it over and over and
over again. Anytime there's an individual just delivering a line
to a group of people, which happens like every other
scene the police chief ted ed Helms. It happens over
and over again, and the way that it's shot, I
kept thinking, why, what does that mean? What am I
(16:31):
supposed to think? And I'm still lost on what that
choice was.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
I think it goes back to what both of you
were saying about the lack of commitment to a vision
like this movie almost feels like it was made to
be shown in schools to teach kids about historical creth.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
That's a great comp.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
To what end, because it's not like, Oh, they sanitize
it because they didn't want to upset the Kennedy's. The
Kennedy family was upset. The right wing commentators did embrace
the movie like anything you would try to change it
to avoid did happen. So the only thing that the
tampering of the drama did was make sure that the
movie bombed.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
The first thing that I do after every movie that
I watch is go to Reddit and just see what
people thought. And what was interesting about this was that
I could find so few posts about it, and all
of them, except for one or two, was a conservative group,
like some conservative subreddit, and They all were saying, finally
(17:29):
Hollywood goes after the Democrats for once.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
You know.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
It was like this weird triumphant thing to them, that
this true story was told, as if that's not what
happens in historical dramas.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Everything.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
Yeah, but the response to this movie was that it
was embraced by a certain right wing people like Rush
Limbaugh talked about it a lot, whatever. And then as
a response to that, there was some sort of finger
wagging on the left where there was an op ed
in the Times by Neil Gabbler, who wrote a biography
of Ted Kennedy, and he was like, this movie is
(18:04):
sensationalist and it spreads these lies and conspiracy theories. And
I read that this morning. I was like, if only, yeah,
I wish, you know, we would it was age. Yeah,
So it's this funny thing where the right wing commentators
just will latch onto anything that seems like it's for
their cause. And then a couple of people basically fell
for the bait and felt the needs of disown the
(18:26):
film or defend it or whatever. And then meanwhile audiences
didn't care.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah, it's not worth it.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
It's a boring movie that repeats three core scenes again
and again, Ted alone sitting with his head in his
hands or staring at something and you don't know what
he's thinking. Ted addressing the room full of guys who
he's like, how do I get out of this one
guys and they're pitching him ideas, and then they're outside
(18:54):
around where the accident is. That's basically every scene in
this movie, to the point that if you look away
and come back, you're like, do we go somewhere else
and come back to this or is this still going?
I came away feeling the chronological decision is really strange
to me. I came away feeling like they should have
Birdman this movie one shot from the evening and the
(19:14):
accident all the way through, right, So I am arguing
with the people now. The tension is building just by
the fact that you're watching this without any cuts, but
the fact that they cut but still went chronologically. It
gives you this formless, void of a feeling of a
movie with no acts and no beginning and no end
(19:35):
that just keeps.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
Going totally No. It felt like it was honestly trying
to avoid cliches and sensationalism to a fault, because there
are many sort of cliche ways you could frame it. There's,
for example, a very obvious one is to do an
interview with Ted Kennedy and then flashbacks as he's doing
the interview. That's actually what they did for Pablo Laurian's Jackie,
which we just discussed a couple of weeks ago. You
(19:56):
could have it be jumping back and forth and play
with time. Could have it told from different perspectives and
have the cliche be that everyone had a different experience
of this event. You could do Marry Joe's perspective and
test pro secutor. They were trying to avoid formal cliches
to such an extent that they ended up just presenting
everything in the most straightforward way, and I honestly think
(20:17):
that also happened with the performances, and and that's why
there are no interest, because they were like, we don't
want it to be a giant speech that feels too
cliche or to oscary, so instead we're going to have
everyone talk in hi monotone and not really say anything
that dramatic, which, as we said, made the Bruce Den
thing even more ridiculous because when you have him being
like Alibi, like right within a movie that makes no
(20:41):
other no other big decisions like that, Like it's gonna
sound ridiculous. The alibi think would have not sounded ridiculous
if you had a bunch of people, you know, Grant
standing in every scene.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yeah, yeah, Because also that is one of the fabrications
of this movie, is that at this point in time,
Joe Kennedy Senior, he couldn't speak anymore. He was not
able to be a part of the decision making here.
He'd had a stroke and he was just a couple
months away from passing away. So to make that one
(21:10):
big decision to fabricate his involvement and then have it
be his Rosebud, his reverse Rosebud, I guesst or whatever
is alibi, and then not even exploring that. Then Ted's
big attempt to get an alibi is he asks somebody
what time it is.
Speaker 6 (21:27):
That's a really funny way to get.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Out assembles the brain trust and it's just bad. Guys.
How do I get out of this one? Guys?
Speaker 5 (21:33):
I know, all right, I'm very aware of the fact
that we're all sort of piling on this movie. So
I want to give us a challenge, and I have
an answer for myself Is there anything we liked about
this movie? What did we appreciate?
Speaker 1 (21:42):
I liked that Elliott Page's two ex girlfriends were in
it together, and I thought about that though.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
Oh my god, that's true. Yet Wow, Yes, it was
nice to see Olivia Thurlby, someone I only associate with Dreuneau.
So I would say mine is that. I actually felt
that the portrayal of Mary Joe was one of the
stronger parts of the movie, and I thought there was
a very conscious decision to give her personality when we
saw her on screen, which then made the Kennedy's dealings
(22:12):
with her after the fact seem even more evil because
they are just treating her as like a problem to
be solved. Not a single one of them is speaking
about her as though she's an individual with a personality,
with a history. All of them allegedly were friendly with her,
she worked for Bobby, and they're speaking about her in
such a cold, distant way, And I think that really
does land you, know at times, because you have experienced
(22:35):
her in the beginning of someone with a complicated relationship
to her job and to this family and to politics. Talented, Yes,
if anything, she's like not after yeah, yeah, job in
her few scenes, she is in a weird way, the
most complex character, which, to be clear, is not saying
a lot in this movie, but she is someone who
(22:58):
is wrestling with a lot. She's not just a symbol
of innocent, beautiful brunette.
Speaker 6 (23:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Well, Also, the first conversation about the evening is there
is no party without the girls, and Ted is very
concerned about making sure that they have a way onto
the island, and someone's making sure that they get settled.
And then the party is supposed to be thinking them
a bit. I mean, that's the way it's presented. His
(23:22):
speech is just saying we're all family now, which is,
you know, they were very important to him when they
were working for his family. And then the second that, yeah,
he murdered one of them, they're not any cause the
DEATHA yeah, cause the DEATHA sure, I know it's not murder.
It certainly feels murderish.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
Oh sure.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
You know.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
There's a level of cowardice to the whole affair that
is unseemly for anyone, and certainly for someone who deems
to be in a leadership position at that level or
at any level. It's cowardly in a way that I
think is existentially disgusting. I think the performances were good.
I do agree that I think that everybody performed competentently.
(24:06):
I agree with you that you get the sense that
they never really let anybody off the reins like you wanted,
like do I want to see ed Helms playing it
straight and going yad every like other the habit you know,
every couple of lines of dialogue. I will say that
that beginning seeing the party because a good job of
giving you a sense of why you would attach yourselves
(24:29):
to this family. You know of how a person's ambitions
might lead you to a position like that, and the
sense of playing a larger political game by being associated
with them, And you never get the same to your
point about like, she's not the kind of like innocent,
wide eyed person. You get the sense that she understands
(24:51):
who they are's clear eyed about what her job is,
and she's trying to get the most out of it
by playing this game. And so that I thought was
probably the most interesting part of the film.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
We'll be back with more United States of Kennedy after
this break.
Speaker 6 (25:17):
And we're back with the United States of Kennedy.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
I think the idealism of the Kennedys seems to have
died with Jack and Bobby, and this movie is a
depiction of what's left. Everything just seems like everyone's running
on fumes, and I think you sort of get that
at the party, like they're all happy to be with
one another, but it also has a mournful undercurrent.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
The other thing about the party that nobody mentions in
this movie that I wish they had because it would
have been more interesting, is that every single man there
is married.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
There is another way where this filmmaker was trying to
be even keeled and not be unfair to anyone, because
there's a world where you shoot that party as like
a debaucherous, sure crazy event where all these men or
hitting a drunk men or hitting on these young women,
and they don't do that, and you're sort of like, okay, well,
at least paint a picture.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Yeah, it would have been something to watch. This is
what I was saying before we started recording. You know,
this movie is not terrible, and that is almost worse.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
Yes, I agree, it's really bad. Yeah, there's nothing worse
than a safe movie. Yeah, particularly a safe movie about
something where somebody died and a ascendant political career that
had the I mean, you could, I think, reasonably make
the case that this event changed the course of history, right,
and then to make a safe movie about that is like,
(26:38):
why what are we doing?
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Well?
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Any episode of mad Men is better than this.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
It could have used a little more mad Men. Yes,
it could have really leaned into the period piece drama
camp of it all.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Well.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
I was kept thinking because at first I did not
think they were going to show her in the car.
That doesn't happen for a little while after the accident,
and I thought that was it. They were going to
explore that theory that she was alive in the car
for a while. But then when they started showing it,
I was thinking about how Joyce Carol Oates wrote a
short story that was inspired by chap Equittic that some
(27:12):
people say was the thing that brought it back into
the collective memory. And that entire story takes place in
the time that she's drowning. Yeah, and it's flashbacks and
it's her thought and it's all of her thoughts leading
up to the accident and where she's going. You know,
(27:33):
the whole story takes place in that time that she's
drowning in the car, and that's so cinematic, and that's
a you know, a short story, you know, but then
to watch the movie and it have it be so
not cinematic.
Speaker 5 (27:47):
Yeah, and the story is called Blackwater. It's a novella.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
You know what I thought they were going to do
when they because I agree with you, that was that
was gripping stuff to watch. It really really harrowing. I
thought what they were gonna do was, Okay, we've shown
you this horrendous way, this drawn out way, where you understand,
she understands what's happening, what's going to happen, and she's
so afraid. And then I thought they were going to
(28:11):
mirror that with Kennedy looking for exits. I'm looking for
a way out of this, but the walls are closing
in and it's all constricting on me, and in the end,
I'm trapped in this isolated bubble by myself. And instead
the movie just kind of lets go of you after
this drawn out death scene and then when they show
you the body again as if to say, don't forget
(28:32):
this happened. And then I thought, Okay, well they're not
going to do that, but they're going to have these flashbacks,
so you understand the guilt is weighing on him.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
And then they let go of that too.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
No, but it was.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
But there's a moment in that first quarter of a
movie where you're thinking, Oh, there's interesting avenues that this
can go.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
I also going back to my question of who's the protagonist.
At one point I wrote down what's the climax?
Speaker 5 (28:57):
I would say, maybe they want the climax to be
Joe slapping ted in a way I.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Felt like maybe it was very Yet when he's deciding
which speech the King's speech, it, Yeah, it felt like
they had.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Three choices, and the three choices were confrontation with Dad,
and it felt like, oh, it could be this, but
then they chickened out, and then it was gonna be
King's speech. Can he select the correct truth telling speech? Right?
And then it was gonna be reunion with Dad, not
the confrontation, but like I've got his love back and
I understand why he sent me on this path. And
(29:34):
then it's it's like none of those, Yeah, what was it?
Speaker 5 (29:38):
Yeah? The way to combine all of those is to
make it almost like a systems movie, which is sort
of what JFK was. It's about a network of different
people that each have different motives and are each lying
to some extent to further their own agendas whatever. But
the different people don't really connect, and it all feels
very disjointed. And there are parts when all of the
(30:02):
brain trust, as you say, are in the war room
and you're like, Okay, let's get this going. Let's get
a conversation going where everyone's talking over one another and
one person is yelling at this person, the other person's
accusing them, and it just ends. And then you go
to Joe and he's drooling and he's slapping his son. Okay,
all right, So I want to talk a little bit,
and especially with you, because I feel like you will
(30:23):
have a good take on the industry side of this.
I want to talk about the fallout and the legacy
of this movie, because this is a movie that really
affected the careers of its writers and its director, and
arguably its lead actor in a pretty severe way. Because
there is a world in which this movie was a success,
and these writers went on to write a bunch of
(30:44):
other political thrillers. The director went on to direct more
high profile projects. Jason Clark is that his name? The
lead like Jason Clark went because he's a clearly he's
in a lot of stuff, but he's like a working
character actor in B plus rate movies. But the writers
have not gotten another film produced since then. The director
hasn't done much. One of the things that I wrote
(31:07):
down because of added to the weird uncanny equality of it,
is that the production company is called Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures,
and I looked them up and they also have only
produced weird movies no one has ever heard of.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Also, the logo of Yes in the opening, it's like
from I.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
Don't know's ting to video?
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Microsoft were default, like in nineteen ninety eight. You opened
it up and you're like, you need a logo for
a movie studio? Here you go, this is it.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
Yeah, So what is your take on these filmmakers. I
don't think that.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
The downswing in the careers of the various people associated
with this is necessarily due to anything more complex than
they made a very high profile bad movie.
Speaker 5 (31:58):
Yeah, you can.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
Make a regular bad but if you're going to make
a bad, boring movie and you're taking a huge shot
with chap equittic, then you do run the risk of
movie jail. Now, I will say just looking at it,
you see the red flags in retrospect. I don't know
that this director was clearly the right guy for this.
I don't know that Jason Clark is you know, Ed
(32:19):
Helm's probably more famous than him. I think it's really
as simple as they made a bad, boring film that
caused a lot of controversy, and that is kind of
a recipe for career jail. I think in the entertainment industry,
or at least you know, people in this have worked again.
(32:39):
But I think it's as simple as that they made
a bad, high profile film that was controversial.
Speaker 5 (32:45):
Yeah, because I remember it being controversial, and then I
was trying to find proof that it was controversial other
than the right wing fear mongering and the opit and whatever.
I could have sworn that this movie was like a
punchline like online, and I was trying to find proof
of it, and I couldn't. It's almost like it never existed,
and I incepted myself. I know it was a moderate flop,
like it was I'm seeing here now. It had a
(33:07):
budget of thirty four million in the box office was
eighteen million. That is that's obviously not great, but it's
not the biggest flop in the history of film. It
almost I think maybe it was controversial if you were
in the industry and knew what was going on, and
then for everyone else that just like didn't make an impact,
Like it is a completely forgotten movie.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
Yeah. And I also think, you know what was this twenty.
Speaker 5 (33:29):
It was May and twenty seventeen, and then we found
out it was supposed to be released for Oscar season,
and then it got pushed to twenty eighteen, so it
actually is technically a twenty eighteen release.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
I think it's several things. I think people, certainly by
twenty eighteen and continuing today, are like, can I just
go to the movies and not do politics?
Speaker 5 (33:47):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (33:48):
I think you're also talking about the last crusting of
the comic book movie Waves, so nobody fucking gave a
shit about this adult, mid budget historical drama.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
I agree with you. I understand it was controversial, and
I understand that a lot of right wing ideologues were
really crowing about this movie. I also remember not thinking
about this movie at all.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
Yeah. I had sort of an aha moment when you
were just saying that people didn't want politics on screen,
because I think, on the one hand, you are obviously
right that there was a politics fatigue, but on the
other hand, almost the opposite was also true, in that
with the first years of the first Trump administration, people
did want a certain kind of political media, but they
(34:32):
wanted it to be really preachy and either angry or
super inspirational. They wanted the black and white narrative that
made you stand up and say, we're not going to
take this anymore. Like I think a movie that villainized
Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party has always been this
way in Trump, you know, I think the major flaw
of this movie in terms of the timing, was that
(34:54):
it didn't take any big stance in an era when
all people wanted was to be angry about try.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
One might call that a point of view, yes exactly, Yeah,
you know, perspective, a point of view, a take.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
I completely agree. You know. I think Thirteen Hours in
Benghazi came out before the Michael Bay, yes propagandistic action
movie about the events in Benghazi during the lad Obama administration,
and I will say, politically terrible, like all Michael Bay films,
very watchable and exciting film, and you wish they would
(35:28):
have just like drizzled some hot sauce into this film
and give us something man, make it like from the
perspective of Mary Joe, she's a ghost, do something crazy, man,
piss me off. Yeah, other than looking at my watch.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
And even the Mary Joe element of it, it's funny
like these were very black and white political times, like
the early Trump earrat. Truly, you look back on it
now and you cannot believe that it was so recent.
But the two things that were very much, especially for
left of center liberal audience, the two things they cared
about politically were Trump and the Me Too movement. This
actually has the potential to touch on both of those things.
It's about political corruption. It's about a woman that was
(36:05):
discarded and not for dead and literally laftford head by
a man in power. I'm not saying I would have
loved it if it was a movie that was super
preachy and black and white. But I'm like, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
I think that I think we keep selecting the wrong protagonist.
This movie should have been about Mary Joe. You follow
her throughout the day. She's talking about her aspirations, what
she's hoping to do in her career, in her life
and then it's tragically cut short. I just recently read
a book about one of the diplomats that his name
(36:37):
is tally Rand. He worked for the French government under
the Late Revolution, Napoleon when the king came back, and
then the government after they deposed the king, and the
whole time it was because everybody hated him he was corrupt,
but they also were like, fuck, we need to get
this guy back. And I kept going like, why don't
we make a movie about this guy and not Napoleon?
And I feel the same way about this, like this
(36:58):
should be her movie.
Speaker 5 (37:00):
Yeah, to that exact point, it made me appreciate the
movie Jackie more than I did when we first saw
a couple of weeks ago, because that's exactly what they
did there. I mean, obviously, Jackie Oh is a much
more well known figure than Mary Joe Kopecnie. But they
took this event whose protagonist is undoubtedly John F. Kennedy,
not Jackie, and they told it through a different perspective,
through this technically passive viewer of the events that were happening,
(37:23):
and put her front and center.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
There's a really strong voice to it. It's very recognizable
as Pablo Loraine. A person could not like it, a
person could have a criticism of it, but that criticism
would be because of choices that were made, like strong choices.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
And this is exactly why I think both of us
were struggling to come up with questions. And it's like,
you don't know what your reaction is to something that
isn't positing something.
Speaker 4 (37:50):
Yes, it's just kind of like, here's what happened, I
have no thoughts on it, and then we walk away.
I will say that I think that to your question
about industry reactions, I think probably this movie doesn't get
made if you write a script about Mary jer Kopecney. Right,
you know, like whatever the name of the studio is,
I forget.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Movie Picture entertain Studios Pictures.
Speaker 4 (38:12):
They're gonna go, I'm going to give you thirty million
dollars to make a movie about No, you got to
make it about Ted, because nobody knows who married your
like the Ted Kennedy, the Kennedy's and all of those things.
I think here the a boring movie.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
I feel like we've ragged on it so much that
the three of us need to write the married Joe
Kopecne version of chepi quick. I know, I mean, and
get on that blacklist.
Speaker 5 (38:35):
Yes, just like these two writers are on the blacklist
and now they haven't made a movie in ten years.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Jason, thank you so much.
Speaker 5 (38:41):
Jason, thank you so much. This was so much fun.
And thank you for humoring us and rewatching one of
the most weird movies of the last ten years.
Speaker 4 (38:49):
I excited to get your reactions, to hear your reactions
to thirteen Days.
Speaker 5 (38:54):
Oh my god, we can't wait. Maybe we'll have you back.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
The United States of Kennedy is hosted by me Lyra
Smith and George Severes. Original music by Joshua Tepalski, mixing
and mastering by Graham Gibson and Doug Bame.
Speaker 5 (39:07):
Research by Dave Rus and Austin Thompson. Our executive producer
is Jenna Cagele. United States of Kennedy is a production
of iHeart Podcasts. Next week we're talking about the criminal
trial of William Kennedy Smith and its NonStop coverage on
Core TV that changed the media landscape forever.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
So subscribe and follow United States of Kennedy for all
things Kennedy every week
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