Forget about Joe Kennedy and his mouth, it's time to focus on a different Kennedy. Variety reported that The Handmaid Tale's Elisabeth Moss will play Rosemary Kennedy, the elder sister of Senator Robert Kennedy and President John F. Kennedy, in an upcoming movie called A Letter From Rosemary Kennedy.
The film, directed by Ritesh Batra, will look at the life of Rosemary Kennedy, who was born with intellectual disabilities as a result of not receiving enough oxygen to brain during birth. Later she would go through "a catastrophic lobotomy" at the age of 23 that "left her with the mental capacity of a toddler," according to People.
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“The movies about the Kennedy family are deservedly stormy affairs," Batra said, "but here’s a story about the storms within all of us." The producers of the film, Jason Michael Berman and Kevin Turen, agreed that this will be a "poignant and true story to life based on one of the hidden gems of the Kennedy family."
According to a statement to Variety, the film is "based on personal letters illustrating her wish to connect with her family and how her story became a catalyst for change and left behind a legacy for generation to follow."
Considered an embarrassment to her father Joseph Kennedy Jr., Rosemary was hidden from public view and ultimately institutionalised following her lobotomy. The procedure was performed by inserting a sharp instrument into the brain and swinging it around to destroy brain tissue. It was believed that severing tissue in this part of the brain could cure psychiatric disorders. Dr. Walter Freeman, the doctor who pioneered the lobotomy in America, performed the procedure on Rosemary himself.
It would be two decades before Rosemary’s eight siblings would learn the truth about their sister, who was living at a Catholic facility for the mentally disabled in Wisconsin. She would live there until her death in 2005.
“The shame of her disability was our family secret," Timothy Shriver, Rosemary's nephew, told People in 2014. After decades of having to hide, Moss will get a chance to share Rosemary's story with the world.