Butler's Cinema Scene

Rebecca Hall as reporter Christine Chubbuck

“CHRISTINE” My rating: B

115 minutes | MPAA rating: R

An almost unbearably sad story well told, “Christine” hovers on the nexus of individual mental illness and societal insanity.

But however painful this yarn may be, it offers an acting showcase for Rebecca Hall, the Brit actress who here dowdies herself down to portray real-life TV reporter  Christine Chubbuck with a quiet anguish and growing desperation that can make your skin crawl.

Set in the early ’70s in a TV station in Sarasota, FLA, Antonio Campos’ film (the screenplay is by Craig Shilowich) follows
Christine’s personal and professional meltdown as she is beset both by inner  demons and what she sees as an unconscionable deterioration in local TV news.

She’s a workaholic…perhaps not by choice. Christine has  no personal life to speak of.  She lives with her mother (J. Smith-Cameron) and hasn’t had a proper date in years — though she has a clumsy case of the unrequited hots for the station’s preening anchorman (Michael C. Hall).

When she has a spare moment she puts on hand puppet shows for elementary school kids — shows that are a lot heavier on moral instruction than entertainment value.

And that’s Christine’s dilemma at work as well.

She is forever battling her news director (Tracy Letts), whose mandate is to beef up the station’s pitiful ratings. That means minimizing the thoughtful reports in which Christine specializes and leaning heavily on “juicy” topics: crime, violence and the outrageous.

“If it bleeds,  it leads,” he advises the staff.

Michael C. Hall, Rebecca Miller

Christine is contemptuous of this emphasis on the sensational. But her own reporting – what we see of it — is heavy handed and uninspired. She chooses “important” topics, but almost never engages the viewer.  A Chubbuck report goes down like bad-tasting medicine.  It’s supposed to be good for you.

Between battling for more airtime, proposing impractical projects (multi-part documentary series), and carping about how she’s the only one in the newsroom  with any journalistic integrity, Christine is a royal pain in everybody’s ass.

One day in 1974 she delivered an on-air meltdown that 40 years later remains the stuff of journalism legend. (I won’t reveal the exact nature of Chubbuck’s actions,  lest it prove a spoiler for those unaware of her story.)

In the lead role Hall captures both Christine’s idealism and her impracticality. At times she is reduced to tears by loneliness and isolation; at other times she lashes out contemptuously at any and all who fail to share her high standards.

At the same time director Campos perfectly captures the camaraderie, competition and distinctive personalities percolating through a TV newsroom (I was working for The Kansas City Star at the same time, and can testify to the accuracy of the atmosphere coming off the screen).

Curiously, this is the first of two films dealing with Chubbuck.  The upcoming documentary “Kate Plays Christine” follows actress  Kate Lyn Sheil as she does research to portray Chubbuck in another (presumably aborted) film biography.

| Robert W. Butler