The Kennedys 8-Part Mini-Series

[Heisenberg]

Anyone else endure the first two parts of this? I don't really ever write at length about a show I've just seen, but this was so disappointing I thought I might save someone else 90 minutes of their life. Honestly, if feels like the entire production has foregone all subtlety, and if the producers/writers were using this as a hard-hitting controversial exposé of the Kennedys, it would work to a degree. With the rich themes and issues at hand here, it's a real shame to see them squandered.

Also a shame is just how little the cast assembled here has to work with, as the writing foregoes any complexity for caricatures. Joe Sr. might as well have an evil lair where we find him sat, stroking a white cat on his lap. His son Joe bounces from perfection, to bitter big brother, before a clichéd heart to heart moment between him and Jack that carries no weight. Then there's John of course, and while Kinnear actually plays him well in both speech and mannerisms, the writing also crushes him - turning the iconic and complex President into a idiotic, single-minded woman-chaser. As Rose, Hardcastle is given little more to do than scream about the importance of faith and cry. And Holmes as Jackie... just no.

Of the positives, Pepper's there to take equally poor writing to task and do something memorable with so little. His portrayal of Bobby stands out from the rest of the production as being top-class, nailing it. His performance alone makes me want to stick around for the rest just to see his scenes as Bobby becomes John's enforcer of sorts. But I just don't think I could sit through more.

 

[Superman_]

Personally I liked it. It is rare when someone would talk about yet alone make a movie about the good and bad sides of the Kennedy Family because of what happened to JFK and Bobby. But this movie does it. This shows you while they were good they were not perfect. I mean JFK was about to be the first president to get divorce while in the white house because Jackie got fed up and walked out on him a few times. And Bobby wasn't perfect as well and he was sleeping with Jackie also. So I welcome anything that doesn't paint the Kennedys as saints like how we like to do because they were far from it.

 

[Pittman4Two]

With how good a series this was, I can't believe there aren't more posts. Hopefully it's because many don't get the Reelz channel.

 

[Prison Mike]

I don't get Reelz channel. I'm going to have to use other means to see this.

 

[DACrowe]

I watched the first two episodes last week and out of curiosity on how they would handle the subject matters, I watched the episodes dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination.

The early episodes were far worse. It isn't a straight hatchet job on Jack and almost mythologizes Bobby....but boy does it grind its axe deep into Joe Sr. and, strangely, Joe Jr.

Joe Sr. could be a real bastard, let's be fair. But he had some humanity and good qualities to him. Here, he is a one-note caricature who comes off as a pure villain. They subtly discredit Jack's Naval medal by having for Joe Jr. and later Jack himself (falsely) say he didn't deserve it, because "I sank my boat." They barely mention it was for him saving all the surviving crew members, dragging an injured one on a tow with his teeth (hence the back injuries). It then depicts Joe Jr.'s entire service to his country as dependent on his wanting medals to run for Congress and eventually president. They say he died not to serve his country, but out of blind ambition.


....

The later episodes I saw were better. They even suggest that Bobby was more saintly than he may have been (wanting to leave politics forever in 1963, not having the much rumored affair with Marilyn Monroe), but they make Jack look a little too indecisive. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a moment of strength for him and standing up to the hawks, not doddling to the last minute when the Soviets stood down. I also think it was lame to take Stevenson's grand moment in the UN out in favor of spending time on Jackie supposedly walking out on Jack during the crisis. It was less lame than having Joe Sr. bribe her not to divorce him in 1954, but still mostly unbelievable melodrama.

Lastly, glossing through his assassination by focusing on Joe Sr. trying to walk was just lame. And that is the show's biggest problem. Even if it was completely inaccurate, it can still be great (example: Oliver Stone's JFK). This is just dippy.

Stick with Thirteen Days as the best historical fiction piece on Kennedy made to date.

 

[DACrowe]

Personally I liked it. It is rare when someone would talk about yet alone make a movie about the good and bad sides of the Kennedy Family because of what happened to JFK and Bobby. But this movie does it. This shows you while they were good they were not perfect. I mean JFK was about to be the first president to get divorce while in the white house because Jackie got fed up and walked out on him a few times. And Bobby wasn't perfect as well and he was sleeping with Jackie also. So I welcome anything that doesn't paint the Kennedys as saints like how we like to do because they were far from it.

Say what?! Methinks you heard a rumor where someone substituted Marilyn Monroe (which very well may have happened) in favor of a more character-assassinating version. I would like to see a source.

 

[Superman_]

Say what?! Methinks you heard a rumor where someone substituted Marilyn Monroe (which very well may have happened) in favor of a more character-assassinating version. I would like to see a source.

No it was well known that he had an affair with Jackie after JFK died. However Jackie asked to have this information kept private till after she was gone. Unless it was very public like the Monroe thing a lot of the bad things with the Kennedy's you don't hear about to much because of the respect people have for them. Jackie above everyone else but she had an affair with Bobby mainly according to her biographer because of them morning the death of JFK they became close and it happened.

 

[DACrowe]

I looked into it. It was not her personal biographer who wrote this. Rather it stems from a a hack "biographer" who has a history of spotty, unverified sensationalistic books. He waited until after Jackie died, because he can't be sued for defamation of the deceased.

This is what the UK's Guardian reported on C. David Heymann:

Heymann, who is frequently described as eccentric, has a mixed record.
His publisher was forced to pulp a first edition of a biography of Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton after a Beverly Hills doctor, who the writer accused of over prescribing drugs for Hutton, pointed out that he was 14 years old at the time of the alleged incident. The Manhattan district attorney investigated Heymann for fraud over allegations that the Hutton diaries on which much of the book was based were fake. None of which stopped the book from becoming a best seller.

Heymann also drew scepticism when he appeared on the front of newspapers and on television a decade ago claiming to have been drinking with JFK's son, John, shortly before he was killed in a plane crash. Critics questioned whether John Kennedy would have been friendly with the author who wrote a scandalous biography of his father and the bar owner said Kennedy had not been there for two years.

As this is the first record of anyone attesting to this affair, it strikes me as smut that sells. Bobby most likely had an affair with Marilyn Monroe and most certainly was not as faithful to his wife as the miniseries (from the episodes I saw) depicts him to be. I am curious as to why a show that goes out of its way to vilify Joe Sr. and Joe Jr. while also subtly discrediting some of Jack's accomplishments would sanitize Bobby's own personal failings (as a foil to Jack?).

However, the only source for the Jackie and Bobby rumors stem from a book published shortly after Jackie's death by a writer who has been investigated for fraud and caught making up other "facts" about his subjects to sell books.

I hope the miniseries avoided going there in the final episode.