On Screen

Though the title suggests a Max Headroom–style John F. Kennedy
head on a movie screen, gamely taking questions from the audience, the
truth of Virtual JFK is much less sexy. By “virtual,” the movie
means “alternate history,” like the fun recent mockumentary C.S.A.:
The Confederate States of America or 2006’s heavy-handed George W.
Bush snuff film Death of a President. So on those grounds, the
title should really be something like What if JFK Wasn’t
Assassinated in 1963?

But that’s not right, either, because all the documentary does is
suggest, using six actual examples from his presidency, that JFK
probably wouldn’t have gotten us involved further in Vietnam. And then
it explains how Lyndon Johnson did get us involved in Vietnam. I
have never seen a film’s marketing and self-classification so
completely misidentify its own content.

That said, it’s an admirably concise explanation of how and why we
came to be involved in Vietnam, and that’s saying something: After
Watergate, Vietnam is probably the toughest recent historical event to
contextually explain to people who weren’t there. And the lengthy
scenes showing a nervous, and at times petulant, Kennedy taking a
beating from the press during a few briefings are an illuminating
suggestion of what’s likely to come in the first year of an Obama
presidency. Watching JFK—who we usually only see onscreen as a
confident, smiling, young buck of a president—actually struggle
with the nuances of his job is almost refreshing.

Ultimately, this movie wants to be a whole heck of a lot: a polemic
against the Iraq war, an argument for putting an intelligent man in the
Oval Office, and a reconsideration of our belief that our involvement
in Vietnam was inevitable. But it’s too late for the first two causes,
and it succeeds only at the latter ambition, making it a must-see movie
event only for serious 1960s policy wonks.