Entertainment Studios has released a new trailer for the upcoming dramaChappaquiddick, which chronicles the deadly incident involving SenatorTed Kennedyat the titular location. Based on a true story,ChappaquiddickstarsJason Clarkeas Kennedy, who at this point in time was mulling over a potential run for the White House a year after the death of his brother Bobby Kennedy. Details of the Chappaquiddick incident are murky at best, but the facts are these: after a night of drinking, Kennedy was involved in a car accident with Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara) that left her dead. But the cover-up of the incident created more questions than answers.
I saw directorJohn Curran’s film at TIFF last fall, and it’s a really solid, involving, and timely drama that doesn’t offer easy answers. It definitely doesn’t paint Kennedy as a saint, but it does provide fantastic insight into the Kennedy family as a whole, and the lengths to which patriarch Joseph Kennedy (Bruce Dern) would go to get his family in the White House.
Check out the newChappaquiddicktrailer below. The film also features fantastic performances fromEd HelmsandJim Gaffigan.Chappaquiddickopens in theaters on April 6th.
Here’s a synopsis forChappaquiddickviaTIFF:
The Kennedy dynasty had lost three heirs apparent by 1969, and Ted (Jason Clarke) was, at the time, the family’s last hope to carry their name and ambitions into the upper echelons of US politics. Kennedy patriarch Joe (Bruce Dern), however, always considered his youngest son a ne’er-do-well — and he never let Ted forget it. The party on Chappaquiddick reunited the “Boiler Room Girls” who had served on Robert Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign, among them Mary Jo (Kate Mara). Ted whisks Mary Jo away for a reckless moonlight drive that ends in tragedy. But the more profound malfeasance begins after the drowning — itself dramatized here in harrowing detail — when a battalion of spin doctors gets to work on covering up the incident, using the Apollo 11 moon landing as a distraction.
