Movie Review: Chappaquiddick

Chappaquiddick **** / *****

Directed by: John Curran.

Written by: Taylor Allen & Andrew Logan.

Starring: Jason Clarke (Ted Kennedy), Kate Mara (Mary Jo Kopechne), Ed Helms (Joe Gargan), Bruce Dern (Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.), Jim Gaffigan (Paul F. Markham), Taylor Nichols (Ted Sorensen), Clancy Brown (Robert McNamara), Lexie Roth (Nance Lyons), John Fiore (Chief Arena), Andria Blackman (Joan Bennett Kennedy), Tamara Hickey (Marilyn Richards), Alison Wachtler (Liz Trotta).

 

What really happened on Chappaquiddick on July 18, 1969 will never truly be known – only two people know the truth, and one of them died that night before they could tell it. The movie Chappaquiddick, is more interested in the other one – Senator Ted Kennedy (Jason Clarke), the only surviving Kennedy brother at the time, who is probably going to run for President in 1972. That night, he and some friends held a “reunion” for the Boiler Room girls – young, single women who worked on Bobby Kennedy’s campaign up until he was assassinated, at a house owned by the Kennedys. Late that night, Ted and one of those women – Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara) went for a drive. Eventually, Kennedy would take a wrong turn, and crash his car into a lake. He got out, and Mary Jo did not. He wouldn’t report the accident until the next morning. Some of the rescuers believe that had it been reported that night, they could have saved Mary Jo.

 

As a film, Chappaquiddick probably does the smart thing, and basically sticks to the facts that are known, and avoids most of the gossip. Kennedy’s excuse for not reporting the accident is that he had a concussion and was in a state of shock – and it wasn’t until the next morning that he realized what had happened, and then immediately called it in. The movie doesn’t really buy that story (no one really does) – nor does it buy Kennedy’s story that he swam back to the mainland that night. But for the most part, it avoids all the scandalous gossip about affairs and drinking, etc. that have swirled around the case in the decades since. In a very real way, it doesn’t need them.

 

As played by Jason Clarke, Ted Kennedy is pretty much the personification of privilege. He isn’t quite the Fredo of the family – but he is still the type of guy who at the age of 37 can say to his father – and mean it – that he wants to be a great man, but needs to figure out who he is first – even though at this point, he is a US Senator, and perhaps his party’s frontrunner for the Presidential nomination. Whether what happened was just a tragic accident, and Kennedy really did do nothing wrong or not, what becomes clear through the film is that Kennedy got away with something because he was a Kennedy. He was basically able to walk away from an accident that left someone dead and never get questioned about it. Most of the movie is devoted to why that is – that basically, because he was a Kennedy, Teddy had access to a war room of lawyers and PR people, and people who had all sort of connections who could basically get this all to go away.

 

As Kennedy, Jason Clarke delivers one of his best performances to date. He captures Kennedy – was affable and charming, but not as affable and charming as Jack, smart, but not as smart as Bobby. He still lives in fear of his father – Joe Sr. (Bruce Dern), although he’s now confined to a wheelchair, and can barely speak (his one word response to Teddy when he confesses what happened is “Alibi” – which tells you all you need to know about Joe Kennedy Sr.

 

I do wish that the film had find more time to make Mary Jo Kopechne more than just “the girl” in this film. Kate Mara is a fine actress, and she does a good job in this role, making the most of her few brief scenes, making Mary Jo sympathetic, smart and thoughtful (and not the person all that gossip made her out to be). Yet, when Chappaquiddick is brought up – even today – it’s mostly in relation to how it cost Teddy Kennedy the White House (he didn’t run in 1972 – but did run for the nomination in 1980, and lost – although he remained in the Senate until his death in 2009) – but it’s important to remember that she lost her life. This is basically the point that Joe Gargan (Ed Helms), a Kennedy cousin, and Teddy’s conscience in this movie, makes to him over and over – but is lost on Kennedy, who can only look at what this is going to do to him, and how he can get out of it. The film is a fascinating, disturbing look at privilege – which is why it’s still relevant nearly 50 years later.

Movie Review: Tracks

Tracks
Directed by: John Curran.
Written by: Marion Nelson based on the book by Robyn Davidson.
Starring: Mia Wasikowska (Robyn), Adam Driver (Rick), Robert Coleby (Pop), Roly Mintuma (Mr. Eddy).

When you hear the basic outline for Tracks – a young woman walks across the Australian outback by herself – with only a few camels and her dog – you probably think that what you`re in for is a journey to self-discovery – especially when you hear the movie is based on a true story. Based solely on the preview, and a few reviews, I assume that the upcoming film Wild, with Reese Witherspoon, will deliver on that front – a film filled with flashbacks that illuminate the characters life, and why they decided to go on the journey in the first place. But Tracks is a more difficult film in that it doesn’t fall into that basic outline. Yes, there are some flashbacks in it (and to be honest, I would have preferred if there were none), but they do not shed too much light on why Robyn Davidson (Mia Wasikowska) went on her journey back in 1975. In voiceover, she does say that she is tired of being treated a certain way because of her `gender and class` but the movie doesn’t delve too deeply into that either. Neither is this really a spiritual journey – or even a woman getting back to nature film. It seems like Davidson simply went on her journey to get away from people – to be alone.  Whatever she learned from that journey, she keeps to herself.

Directed by John Curran, Tracks is a beautiful film in many ways, and a harsh one in many others. The Outback is unforgiving, and as the movie goes along, Wasikowska gets dirtier, and her skin gets sunburned and chapped. She faces difficult tasks and challenges – and even heartbreak – but she simply keeps going. The only other major character in the film is Rick (Adam Driver) a photographer for National Geographic, who the magazine insists on shooting photos of Davidson on her journey as a condition for underwriting the trip. He`s a little goofy and charming – and clearly likes Davidson – but the romantic relationship we expect doesn’t really develop between the two of them (apart from one scene, which is a one off).

This is the fourth film by Curran I have seen, and like the other three (the infidelity drama We Don’t Live Here Anymore, the Far East costume drama The Painted Veil, the psychological thriller Stone), Curran doesn’t give in to the stories more obvious trapping – and doesn’t go in the same direction. Like all of his films, I fear that some will find Tracks a little slow – and to be honest, it does move slowly at times – but the effect of making these films quieter than most is that they dig a little deeper. The movie asks a lot of Wasikowska – she is basically a character who keeps everyone, including the audience, at arm’s length – but the talented young actress delivers a wonderful physical performance. She has already been great in two other movies this year – The Double and Only Lovers Left Alive – and when combined with this film, she has deliver three great, completely different performance in a row (and she still has Maps to the Stars directed by David Cronenberg coming out later this year). She has become one of the best actresses in the world in a short period of time.

Tracks perhaps keeps the audience a little too far away from its central character. She is an interesting person, but she remains more of an enigma than anything else. I wanted a little bit more from the movie. But that would have been a different movie – than Tracks, and not necessarily a better one. Perhaps keeping the central character so unknowable will make Tracks all the more memorable – the type of film that grows in your mind after you’ve seen it.

Movie Review: Stone

Stone *** ½
Directed by: John Curran.
Written By: Angus MacLachlan.
Starring: Robert De Niro (Jack), Edward Norton (Stone), Milla Jovovich (Lucetta), Frances Conroy (Madylyn), Enver Gjokaj (Young Jack), Pepper Binkley (Young Madylyn), Sandra Love Aldridge (Miss Dickerson), Greg Trzaskoma (Guard Peters), Rachel Loiselle (Candace), Peter Lewis (Warden), Sarab Kamoo (Janice).

Stone is an intricate moral puzzle of a movie in which everyone is guilty of something. Each scene in the film changes the moral playing field somewhat, and I was left changing my mind about the characters throughout. If not handled properly, a film like this is likely to go off the rails, and become a mere exercise in screenwriting. But what makes Stone as good as it is the performances by a great cast, that make the characters feel real, even when they are mere pawns in the screenwriters game. They add weight to the movie.

The film stars Robert DeNiro in his best performance in more than a decade (that isn’t saying very much, as DeNiro has pretty much coasted in the past 10 years, with the exception of his great directorial effort The Good Sheperd) as Jack, a man on the verge of retirement from his job at a prison. He meets with convicts who are coming up from parole soon, and writes a report to the board to let them know what he thinks. He is coasting through his last few weeks, when he meets Stone (Edward Norton) – a con with a nasally voice and cornrows, in jail for accessory to the murder of his grandparents. Jack is initially unimpressed with Stone, and his obvious attempts to get under his skin. But as things progress, and he continues to meet with Stone – and then Stone’s wife Lucetta (Milla Jovovich) starts seeing Jack, with the obvious intention of seducing him to help get her husband free, Jack’s life begins to spiral. We already know that Jack has a dark, violent side to him – the opening scene is a flashback where his wife (Frances Conroy) threatens to walk out on him and take their daughter, and Jack snaps. Now, years later, Jack seems to be keeping that rage bottled up – and his wife has become a shell of woman, drinking constantly, and scared to step out of line. Stone and Luceta bring that darkness back.

What I admired about Stone is that it does not take the most obvious route to get where it’s going. Perhaps it’s because it’s Robert DeNiro, who we have seen explode into violence in films like Taxi Driver, or perhaps because of that opening scene, but we expect Jack to explode, to lash out violently at Stone or Luceta or his wife, but he never really does. Instead, he implodes on himself, his buried rage coming to the surface, but instead of lashing out, he impotently does nothing. DeNiro, always a masterful actor when he wants to be, makes Jack into both a character to hate and one to pity – he is a man who hates the situation he’s in, yet can think of nothing to do to get out it. It truly is a great performance.

The rest of the cast is fine as well. Edward Norton may have the title role, but it really is a supporting one. He is constantly playing everyone. With that strange voice, that makes him kind of sound like Terence Howard in Hustle and Flow, and those ridiculous cornrows, it is easy to laugh at Stone at the beginning – and I think that’s just what he wants Jack to do. But gradually, he starts turning the screws, not just on Jack, but on Luceta as well. He is a sociopath is capable of lying without remorse or feeling. When he finds religion, we’re not sure of what to make of it – he seems genuine – but I was struck late in the film by a comment about a stone that Frances Conroy made in the pamphlet that apparently led to Stone’s religious conversion – well after we have been introduced to him, and he says he prefers to be called Stone, and not Gerald. Coincidence? I think not. Norton is an actor whose reputation for being difficult may have cost him some great roles, but he still among the best actors working today when he gets a good one, and this is one of his best.

Not to be outdone, the women in the movie are also excellent – and completely opposite of each other. I have never thought much of Milla Jovovich, who has spent most of her career doing C level action movies, and the last time I remember her in a serious role was The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, where she had the lead and was horrible in it. But here, she is truly a revelation. Her eyes are huge, her voice soft and quiet in the kind of sexy, seductive voice of a teenage girl who doesn’t really know what she’s doing. She struck me as a big kid, easily manipulated, and also gifted at manipulating. She has a femme fatale role here, and she delivers a complex performance that hits all the right notes. It is impossible not to feel sorry for her, even as she deliberately screws with Jack’s life. Frances Conroy is also great – just as she was for all those years on Six Feet Under. She is so quiet in the early going of the film, that she almost feels like a non-entity – a character there only for the convenience of the plot. But as the movie progresses although she does not get much more forceful, we start to see her as a whole person – or as whole as she can be given her life – and she has several great moments where she lets Jack know that she knows what is going on, who he is, and that she is no longer going to pretend. It is a great, quiet performance.

I’m not going to say that Stone is a movie without flaws – it has quite a few. Despite the great performances, which elevate the material well beyond where it probably should be – the film does at times feel like a screenwriter’s invention, more than an organically unfolding plot. And the direction by John Curran (We Don’t Live Here Anymore and The Painted Veil) is at times a little too overwrought (the sex scenes are a good example of this). I also kind of wish that the opening scene, that shows us from the get go that Jack is has a violent streak, had been moved to the end – or cut altogether and we had been allowed to discover this more organically in the film. Ultimately perhaps Stone is more interesting movie to dissect than it is to watch. And yet, I didn’t mind these flaws. Stone engaged me intellectually from the start, and the performances kept me interested throughout. A great movie it isn’t, but there are so few movies that are this interesting, that the distinction is hardly worth making.