It’s a common rule of storytelling and life that people reveal themselves under pressure.
Selfishness, greed, hatred or violent temperaments appear in the hardest times when life most calls upon our virtue.
I remember reflecting on this after leaving the theater of 2018’s “Chappaquiddick,” a Hollywood biopic on the events that nearly destroyed Sen. Ted Kennedy’s career.
In July 1969, the brother of President John F. Kennedy Jr. had an alleged drunk driving accident in Martha’s Vineyard. Kennedy’s car sank into a pond. He escaped, leaving campaign secretary Mary Joe Kopechne trapped in the car. Instead of calling for help, Kennedy found a nearby hotel and went to bed while Kopechne breathed her last gasps.
He didn’t speak to the police until the following day after her body was discovered.
The event cost Kennedy his presidential ambitions, even though he didn’t serve jail time for his actions. History rewrote Kennedy’s reputation as “the Lion of the Senate,” holding him in admiration for the duration of his career as a regal bulwark in Democratic politics.
He became powerful and well-respected by his peers and helped promote progressive politicians like Barack Obama.
“Chappaquiddick” was a fascinating expose in this sense. It seemed unreal for liberal Hollywood to produce a film that so thoroughly eviscerated a leader from its movement, even nine years after his death.
Strangely, the movie didn’t emerge from dissident Hollywood conservatives but as a fluke of history. The film’s “dyed in the wool” liberal screenwriters didn’t realize they were stepping onto a progressive third rail.
This didn’t stop the movie from crashing that year’s award season and hiring big Hollywood talent like Jason Clarke, Bruce Dern, Jim Gaffigan and Clancy Brown. Ratio titan Rush Limbaugh’s endorsement of the film, along with other conservative praise, deflated its ambitions.
Being written and financed before the 2016 election, the film almost certainly would’ve been conceived differently had it arrived during the Trump administration. But it was too late. Screenwriters Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan, thinking they were producing an Oscar-season contender, told Vox they became nervous when conservatives started praising the film.
The film’s critical distance from history allowed it to speak truthfully, avoiding some of the stranger conspiracy theories surrounding the tragedy. The film functioned purely as a character study. And that study was damning.
Kennedy’s immortal words following the tragedy? “I’m not going to be president.”
“Chappaquiddick” plays out as a drama of information and integrity. Brown co-stars as a fixer trying to help the family get ahead of the controversy so that the concurrent Apollo 11 moon landings might bury the story.
Instead, Kennedy’s incompetence and attention-seeking resulted in the tragedy spiraling out of control and nearly ending his Senate career. In the end, he was asked to choose between integrity and opportunity, and he chose the wrong option.
In its best moments, the film is quite haunting as the coldness and cognitive dissonance of its characters play out until its bitter end. The brutal final image? The Chappaquiddick bridge stands in the cold darkness as the real Ted Kennedy’s voice is welcomed by cheering supporters.
Despite falling out of the public consciousness, “Chappaquiddick” still holds up remarkably well. It feels particularly relevant this year, given how many American politicians have shown who they are in the heat of the moment.
Donald Trump showed his mettle under sniper fire, refusing to allow himself to be carted away by the Secret Service amid a July 13 assassination attempt. He raised his fist in defiance, revealing a remarkable level of bravery and concern for his followers.
The attack produced one of the most memorable journalist photographs in recent American history.
Trump Defiant, Determined Post-Assassination Attempt pic.twitter.com/J0AaYEm2Qi
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) July 13, 2024
Days later, President Joe Biden ended his 54-year political career with a whimper. White House aides and press secretaries could no longer cover up his dementia-like symptoms following the June 27 presidential debate.
What was meant to stop his bleeding poll numbers became the year’s saddest spectacle.
Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t even allowed her mettle to be tested since becoming the de facto Democratic nominee. Journalists have been unable to ask her serious questions for more than a month. However, as her previous debate performances with Tulsi Gabbard and Mike Pence showed, she has little composure under pressure.
Thankfully, none of these situations is as serious as a sitting Senator committing manslaughter. They don’t fully speak to Trump or Harris’s character with the same intensity as Kennedy’s actions. Trump’s courage certainly speaks to his manliness and defiance, but Harris hasn’t had a public moment to test her; just a long series of poor debate performances, awkwardness and cowardice in front of cameras.
Even so, Trump and Harris’s leadership skills are on full display. People who pay attention know who Trump and Harris truly are. It’s obvious how they both handle pressure and the virtues and vices of both politicians are visible.
When Ted Kennedy refused to call emergency services that night in 1969, he showed who he was—weak, hollow, and vain. During his 1980 presidential campaign, he struggled to share his motivation for wanting to run for president, because he had none.
He was obsessed with his success and couldn’t grapple with mistakes under pressure. But it all became a joke. The media was happy to deflect for him in the long term.
His alleged womanizing and drunken antics were almost washed away by history, but it took a mid-budget film from a couple of filmmakers misreading the room to expose what history had made very clear to those who paid attention. Thankfully, it takes less effort to cut through the modern media.
When politicians show you who they are … listen.
Tyler Hummel is a Wisconsin-based freelance critic and journalist, a member of the Music City Film Critics Association and the 2021 College Fix Fellow at Main Street Nashville.
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