Christine is a
2016 bio-pic about manic determined newscaster, Christine Chubbuck, who shot herself
live on air in 1974.
What’s brilliant about Christine
is organic way it makes some characters in the film come off a sinister way,
based on Christine’s mannerisms, when in reality everyone is just trying to
help. It never tries to make Christine into a victim but presents the evidence
of her own insecurities as a shining result. Though things get over whelming,
unfortunate and laborious for Christine, the movie begs for her to step outside
of herself and “see the bigger picture”. Things build up for Christine without
any intake of insight and expansive reflection. Whether or not any of the
depictions are accurate to the real life circumstances of real life Christine
Chubbuck is unknown, but the film creates an important character study of
plausible human behavior. And when it gets to the ever so anticipated, heart-stopping
trans-gressive climax, it’s handled realistically without sardonic overtones or
melodramatic fallacies.
Christine has
uncanny touches to David Flincher’s signature style; IE – Zodiac, of creating a sense of dread, but the films atmosphere is
extremely straight forward and naturalistic, and if there’s any misconduct,
it’s because Rebecca Hall’s performance alienates her world’s intentions.
Rebecca Hall unflinchingly takes hold of Christine Chubbuck and
explores the troubled possibilities and apparent neurosis of Christine, using
Christine’s infamous speaking voice to expose even further the cognitive
emotional battle bubbling underneath her. With Rebecca’s naturally awkward and quietly
anxious acting style, she’s able to congruently parallel the pressure of a fast
paced newsroom both athirst and unpredictable like an ulcer, which ironically plays
an important role throughout the movie. This is Rebecca Hall at her best,
honing her talents to conjure the most absorbing performance of her career -
Absolute perfection.
The soundtrack is nostalgically amazing and isn’t featured
ironically, just appropriate to the times; but displaying the idea of music (especially
in a time like the 1970’s) being the one release in where people were free of
thought and “man-made” pressure, and were allowed to be who they really are
when they were alone.
Christine is one of
the few bio-pics that simultaneously portrayed a real person’s life while
making a point about stress, self indulgence, western civilization and the
importance of self preservation. It cultivates the TV broadcasting experience in
all its hyper glory of local and national awareness and spectacle, conjuring a
disturbing tone within the lived through past of an actual era, the 1970’s, all
thanks to thoughtful director Antonio Campos.
-
- - Maurice Jones
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