The Seventh Child

Bobby is a new film directed by Emilio Estevez. The most compelling scenes in the movie, however, had no director. And they were filmed more than three decades ago.

I'm referring to the extraordinary archival footage of Robert F. Kennedy himself.

And when this historical footage is paired so effectively with fictionalized scenes, especially the last 15 minutes of this film, the result is hard to forget.

The cast of this movie is a Hollywood who's who: Anthony Hopkins, Christian Slater, Martin Sheen, Sharon Stone, Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, others. But the star is a man who has been dead for 38 years.

When he speaks, Kennedy has a seriousness and an undertone of sadness that somehow remains hopeful, not sullen. His words seem to spring from deep within himself, from his soul, and not from a speechwriter. It's the politics of conviction, and not the political rhetoric one arrives at based on polling. And it's so odd to hear.

Is there an American politician alive today who speaks with this same authenticity? It took me awhile, but I can only think of one.

The movie, like the man, has its flaws. I don't know if it was intentional, but I see the character in the movie played by William H. Macy an an appropriate parallel. He is, like Kennedy, a good man, a strong man, a flawed man and a philanderer.

It reminds me of the famous quote from Ted Kennedy at RFK's funeral: "My brother need not be idolized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."