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Culturebox: The Kennedys

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The Kennedys
Greg Kinnear as JFK, Katie Holmes as Jackie, with history making a brief cameo.
By Troy Patterson
Posted Thursday, March 31, 2011, at 8:22 PM ET

Katie Holmes in "The Kennedys" miniseries. Click image to expand.Having been dumped by the History Channel and subsequently disdained by a few other cable networks, The Kennedys, an eight-hour miniseries, airs next week way up on the ReelzChannel. This is a suitably low-rent venue for a production that looks pitiably cheap despite a reported budget of $30 million. It would seem that the producers have spent handsomely on star talent and on hairdressing, with Greg Kinnear and Katie Holmes respectively blow-dried and bouffanted into commemorative-plate perfection as JFK and Jackie. It would seem, also, that lower priorities included the construction of credible sets (is the exterior of the White House fabricated from drywall?), the hiring of enough extras to fill out a campaign rally properly or even a family dinner (where's Teddy?), and contracting the services of a competent dialect coach. Kinnear captures his character's non-rhotal speech persuasively, for the most part, but other actors have a hahder time, slipping around from the intonations of Mayor Quimby to those of Will Hunting--and when Rose Kennedy, played by Diana Hardcastle, opens her mouth, the voice that emerges rings like Katharine Hepburn's.

Upon chucking The Kennedys, the History Channel issued a statement that said, in part, "While the film is produced and acted with the highest quality, after viewing the final product in its totality, we have concluded this dramatic interpretation is not a fit for the History brand." The first part of that sentence is so complete a fiction that it is tempting to discount the whole. The film is produced and acted with unconditional mediocrity. This is one of those historical dramas that plays like a forced march of time, with the story advancing because people read stories about themselves in fictional newspapers with names like the United States Tribune. But the dependent clause holds water: In order to be a fit for the History brand, the miniseries would have needed to have a halfway serious interest in, ah, historical analysis, and The Kennedys wants nothing to do with any of that.

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Troy Patterson is Slate's television critic.

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Colorful "Hop" Exceeds Low Expectations -- April 1, 2011

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