Parkland (film)

Plot

Parkland weaves together the perspectives of a handful of ordinary individuals suddenly thrust into extraordinary circumstances: the young doctors and nurses at Parkland Hospital; Dallas's chief of the Secret Service; an unwitting cameraman who captured what became the most famous home movie in history; the FBI agents who were visited by Lee Harvey Oswald before the shooting; the brother of Lee Harvey Oswald, left to deal with his shattered family; and JFK's security team, witnesses to both the president's death and Vice President Lyndon Johnson's rise to power.

Cast

Production

Production began in January 2013 in Austin, Texas. Writer/director Peter Landesman has stated that the film does not explore the various conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination.

The major hospital scenes were filmed in building housed on the campus of Austin State Hospital in Austin Texas due to the period look and feel of the building.

Release

Parkland premiered at the 70th Venice International Film Festival and was also screened at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. Coinciding with the assassination's 50th anniversary year, the film was released theatrically in the United States on October 4, 2013.

Reception

Parkland received mixed reviews, currently holding a 49% rating based on 119 reviews on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes; the consensus states: "Although its decision to look at John F. Kennedy's assassination through uncommon perspectives is refreshing, Parkland never achieves the narrative cohesion its subject deserves." On Metacritic, the film has a 51/100 rating, signifying "mixed or average reviews".

Home media

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 5, 2013.

Historical accuracy

Historian Peter Ling awarded Parkland four out of five stars for enjoyment and three stars for historical accuracy. Reviewing the film, he praised its attempt to "capture the desperate efforts made to save Kennedy in the operating room". He told historyextra: "It shows that the head nurse, Doris Nelson (played by Marcia Gay Harden), had to take a piece of JFK's skull and some brain tissue from Mrs Kennedy [Jackie picked up a piece of her husband's skull at the scene], and that junior doctor, Jim Carrico (played by Zac Efron), had to be told to stop the frenetic but fruitless cardiac massage at one o'clock, when the team declared JFK dead."

However, he noted the "suspect influences" on Abraham Zapruder's decision to hand over his film to Life magazine. He said: "Once copies have been given to the Secret Service and the FBI, Zapruder has to choose from many media outlets who want to buy the film. He chooses Life because he says he respects the publication, but the movie seems to hint that any suppression of the film's contents is in line with Zapruder's wishes, and not because of suspect influences at Life itself, whose managing director had CIA connections."