A new film screened at the Toronto Film Festival shines a harsh light on the Teddy Kennedy car-crash scandal on Chappaquiddick Island — and the famous political family won't like it, according to Vice.
Directed by John Curran and starring Jason Clark as Teddy and Kate Mara as Mary Jo Kopechne, who died in the July 18, 1969, crash, "Chappaquiddick" lays out "in very convincing manner" that President John F. Kennedy's youngest brother "was most definitely" at fault in the deadly accident, according to Vice film writer Jada Yuan.
"You won't soon forget the sound of a post-stroke Joe Kennedy" played by Bruce Dern, "emphatically croaking out one word — 'Alibi!' — when his son calls to tell him that he's 'made a mistake,'" Yuan wrote.
According to Yuan, the director's take on the events, however, "is not the tabloid approach."
The pre-crash drinking was "a gathering of idealists still in mourning" for the death of Robert Kennedy, she wrote. "Mary Jo, in particular, had been so bereft over Bobby's death, she'd left Washington."
"That night, Teddy was trying to convince her to rejoin the fray for his possible presidential run in '72," Yuan wrote.
"According to Curran, every astounding fact in the movie … was taken verbatim from Teddy's written statements, plus an inquest held a couple weeks after the accident," she wrote.
"What the film does best is lay out, in an increasingly horrible deluge, just how many baffling and criminally negligent actions — other than try to save Mary Jo's life — Teddy took in the accident's wake," she added.
The Kennedy family did not cooperate in the film, Yuan wrote, quoting Clarke saying: "I don't think they want anything to do with it."
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