MovieChat Forums > Chappaquiddick (2018) Discussion > Positive reviews and interesting story, ...

Positive reviews and interesting story, but no buzz and poor box office performance

posted 7 years ago by PrimeMinisterX (8708)
6 replies | jump to latest

I saw this one today and it's easily one of the better films that we've gotten so far this year. And yet, there is no buzz at all around it.

It tells the real-life story of Ted Kennedy's involvement in a 1969 car accident that took the life of a young campaign strategist. This is not an event that I knew anything about going into the film but apparently it was a big deal at the time.

It has a 77% critics' score on RT and also has a 73% audience score, so the reception from those who have actually seen it has been positive. But the problem is that almost no one's going to see it. In the 2 1/2 weeks it's been out, it's only made $14 million.

I found it to be an interesting and well-directed film about a piece of history that seems largely forgotten today. My only complaint is that it runs a bit slow.

Overall I would recommend it and can say that of all the films I've seen so far this year, this is definitely a higher-tier entry.

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

thanks for the info

[–] kenburke (2369) 6 years ago

When you get down to it, the idea politician being involved in a scandal with romantic overtones just isn't news anymore (President Clinton took care of that).

[–] PrimeMinisterX (8708) 6 years ago

Yeah, Bill Clinton's shenanigans didn't end in a young girl's death though.

That's not to say that I didn't find Ted Kennedy sympathetic. I did, and what happened was obviously an accident. A very unfortunate accident, but still an accident.

I see now that the film ended its theatrical run making only $17 million against a $34 million budget. That sucks.

[–] kenburke (2369) 6 years ago

What really hurt Ted Kennedy was his not owning up to what he did. Not reporting the accident for ten hours? Not good.

[–] Batty67 (358) 6 years ago

An accident with a monumentally poor judgment chaser over wealth and family entitlement.

[–] Ranke (4) 6 years ago

We just viewed this film last night, from Netflix, and I agree entirely with PrimeMinisterX. I recall reading about this project a couple of years ago, and about efforts by Kennedy's people to quash it, but then forgot about it - until the recent Fox documentary of the same name prompted us to seek it out. Not a great film, certainly, but a reasonably fair and balanced depiction that seems to be supported, in virtually every detail, by the several well-researched books that have appeared. It's also as fair and generous to Senator Kennedy as he could reasonably have expected; and based on what we now know about his behavior that weekend, more so than he deserved.

Why didn't it do better at the box office? It must have something to do with who goes to movies today, a cohort heavily weighted toward the young and the educationally handicapped, with little interest in politics and stunningly ill-informed about even the recent past. What did those behind this project think would be the attraction of a movie title that 95% of movie-goers could not identify? How many could even identify Kennedy himself, dead for nearly a decade? Maybe if the title had been something like "The Tragic Death of Mary Jo".....

In sum, a pretty good, historically realistic depiction of corrupt power at work. By any objective standard, Kennedy deserved a felony conviction (for vehicular manslaughter and OUI) and a lengthy prison term - or at least expulsion (from the Senate), as happened when he cheated in college. That he was rewarded instead with re-election is something the voters of Massachusetts have to answer for. I'm just a history prof myself, but my students, at least, will learn the truth.