There is a scene in 'Christine' where Christine Chubbuck's boss Michael at the news station shows her a news segment of a rival news network revolving around fat people. In response, she voiced her refusal to get involved with anything like that because to her, it's 'exploitative'. This is ironic because whenever there's a film about a tragedy that happened to real life ordinary characters in the past, there is always the risk that the film might veer into exploitative territories. Thankfully, 'Christine' stays respectful to its central character. I don't know much about the real Christine Chubbuck, so I can only comment on the Christine Chubbuck that is presented in the film. The Christine in the film feels like a real, complicated and three-dimensional character. She is clearly flawed, but the director remains sensitive in his treatment of her in the film.
The period setting of 1970s America plays a thematic and contextual role in the film. This is post-Watergate America, one can sense the desperation, cynicism and the restlessness of the era. One can also feel that Christine Chubbuck is a woman of the new age who believes in the Feminist movement and the Women's Liberation movement. She is presented as a character who is on one hand plagued by acute loneliness, but one the other hand it is suggested that she is someone who deliberately blocks people out of her lives and doesn't open up to anyone. This resistance to having a meaningful connection with others or her inability to open up to anyone properly could be down to the fact that as a strong independent feminist woman working in the male dominated industry of journalism, she feels voicing her insecurities and making herself look vulnerable will make her look weak. The film does well to show how the confluence of a number of factors like loneliness, a frictional relationship with your parents, a directionless job,etc. can lead to an inescapable feeling of depression. Rebecca Hall pretty much single-handedly carries the film. It's a comprehensive performance where she uses her physicality, her eyes, her voice and everything at her disposal to create this complicated character on screen.
But the film gets hampered a bit due to some of the writing. There are scenes where the dialogue becomes far too flowery which contradicts the matter-of-fact like dialogue of the other scenes. There are directorial choices here and there which also felt too heavy-handed. An example of this will be the very first scene of the film where we see a big carton with the word 'FRAGILE' written on it being inserted in the room at the background while we see Christine in the foreground.
It's not a perfect film, but at least the director gets tricky job of the treatment of his central character right.
The period setting of 1970s America plays a thematic and contextual role in the film. This is post-Watergate America, one can sense the desperation, cynicism and the restlessness of the era. One can also feel that Christine Chubbuck is a woman of the new age who believes in the Feminist movement and the Women's Liberation movement. She is presented as a character who is on one hand plagued by acute loneliness, but one the other hand it is suggested that she is someone who deliberately blocks people out of her lives and doesn't open up to anyone. This resistance to having a meaningful connection with others or her inability to open up to anyone properly could be down to the fact that as a strong independent feminist woman working in the male dominated industry of journalism, she feels voicing her insecurities and making herself look vulnerable will make her look weak. The film does well to show how the confluence of a number of factors like loneliness, a frictional relationship with your parents, a directionless job,etc. can lead to an inescapable feeling of depression. Rebecca Hall pretty much single-handedly carries the film. It's a comprehensive performance where she uses her physicality, her eyes, her voice and everything at her disposal to create this complicated character on screen.
But the film gets hampered a bit due to some of the writing. There are scenes where the dialogue becomes far too flowery which contradicts the matter-of-fact like dialogue of the other scenes. There are directorial choices here and there which also felt too heavy-handed. An example of this will be the very first scene of the film where we see a big carton with the word 'FRAGILE' written on it being inserted in the room at the background while we see Christine in the foreground.
It's not a perfect film, but at least the director gets tricky job of the treatment of his central character right.