Almost 7% of the American population has been diagnosed as suffering from depression. That’s roughly 15 million people today. In 1974, though depression was recognized as a serious mental disorder, it wasn’t regarded with the same weight that it is today. After all, the mental disease didn’t enter the DSM III until 1980. Christine, from Simon Killer director Antonio Campos, takes a look at infamous Sarasota reporter Christine Chubbuck and her struggle with depression in sad, sanguine, cinematic streaks.
Christine assumes the viewer enters with the baggage of historic context so I don’t feel particularly cautious about skirting around how the film, and subsequently Christine herself, ends. Anyone with the faintest sniff of Chubbuck’s circumstance know that she’s remembered not for her investigative journalism but for her staging of a live on-air suicide. One that ultimately succeeds. Campos had his work cut out for him in turning the cart from exploitative territory, a tricky task in and of itself. Instead of turning Chubbuck’s tragedy into an extension of the “if it bleeds, it leads” mindset, Campos and Hall try at getting to the root of what made his woman tick and, ultimately, what made her want to stop ticking.
In that capacity, he’s mostly succeeded. Chubbuck is a rounded tragic figure, defined both by her headstrong attitude and all-encompassing loneliness. The emptiness that eats her from the inside out is reminiscent of some great Greek lament or other and Hall manages the material authoritatively. There’s a mystical sense that Hall has internalized the character to severe degrees; landed her ticks and foibles and distanced herself from the cast and crew to work through a sense of isolation. She lends a hunched physicality to Chubbuck, giving her an everywoman quality and keeping Hall’s natural beauty at bay.
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At work, Chubbuck is none too popular with boss Michael (Tracy Letts), quick to correct any slip-up that makes it past his lip and often publicly irreverent to his governing policies. Nonetheless, she’s a dedicate agent of the work. A fact her mother quietly resents, friend and professional underling Jean Reed (Maria Dizzia) respects and station anchor (and resident stud) George (Michael C. Hall) admires.
There’s a couple editorial changes to the cold-hard facts that really stand out as head scratchers. For example, Christine’s suicide is provoked by a betrayal of sorts but in the film, it comes at the hand of a co-worker she’s hardly on friendly terms with. According to my research, it was in fact Jean Reed who (innocently enough) catalyzed Christine’s grim act of defiance.
There’s history hinted at that’s left unexplored but Hall is so arresting in each and every moment that your focus is kept squarely on her and her alone. Always looming in the background is Boston, a placeholder for a never-explained series of incidents that resulted in a prescription to anti-depressants. Claiming that she doesn’t like the way they make her feel, Christine has come off the pills. And if Christine is a warning sign for anything, it’s that depression is a battle that can prove unmanageable for even its toughest opponent.
CONCLUSION: ‘Christine’ shines a bright spotlight on Rebecca Hall’s considerable talent; a dark, impactful and overwhelming tragedy if never quite superb.
B-
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By: Matt Oakes
Started blogging about film in college when the university paper wouldn’t have him. Dislikes your consensus film Twitter favorites. Devotee of horror movies that make him die a little inside. Catches films at festivals when he can. Proud SFCS and OFCS member and Tomatometer-approved critic. Editor-in-chief of Silver Screen Riot.
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