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‘Christine’ review [LFF 2016]

London Film Festival 2016

Christine review: Rebecca Hall turns in a career-best performance as the ill-fated Christine Chubbuck in this engrossing and supremely constructed biopic.

Christine review by Paul Heath, LFF 2016.

Christine review

Antonio Campos (Afterschool, Simon Killer) switches genres for this real-life tale of Christine Chubbuck, the American television journalist who took her own life on live television in the late 1970s.

The story of Christine Chubbuck comes to the screen in the second of two features, following this month’s documentary Kate Plays Christine. While that film, directed by Robert Greene, focussed upon the story of actress Kate Lyn Sheil as she attempts to play Chubbuck on screen, Campos’ movie is a full dramatisation of the events that led up to the reporter’s on-air suicide back in 1974.

The film opens many months before that infamous event in Florida in the mid-seventies and focusses on her career and personal life prior. Campos, directing from Craig Shilowich‘s brilliant screenplay), skillfully portrays Chubbuck’s struggles with depression and suicidal tendencies, her home-life with her mother, living in her small apartment with a new lover, and the professional frustrations that she endured in the months before she finally reached breaking point.

Christine review

Assuming the role of Chubbuck is British actress Rebecca Hall, so perfectly cast with the arduous task of embodying such a troubled sole. She is, of course, supreme in every scene – a career-best turn from the actress backed by great support from the likes of Michael C. Hall‘s high-flying, former jock anchor and the ever reliable Tracey Letts as her station boss who constantly blocks her chances of progression. There’s also a brilliant understated performance from Maria Dizzia as camerawoman Jean Reed, and another from Kim Shaw as Andrea Kirby.

In a time when constant news media is very much at the epicentre of everything that we do and social media has provided us with the opportunity for constant voyeurism (just type in ‘Christine Chubbuck’ into Google for proof and you’ll see that ‘Christine Chubbuck video’ is the most searched for term), Christine is as relevant today, over forty years on, as it was back then.

Drenched in orange hue and other eye-watering visuals, Antonio Campos’ third feature takes him on a very different, much more mature path and one that not only pleases, but truly shocks -even though one knows what is coming. Hall’s performance is at the very centre of proceedings – a totally heart-breaking and knowingly harrowing turn as we start to see rather intimately and realistically Chubbuck’s descent.

A solid, engrossing drama and a strong contender come awards season.

Christine review by Paul Heath at the London Film Festival, 2016.

Christine will be released in North America on October 14th, 2016. The UK release date is still TBA.

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