Why I love Rebec­ca Hall’s per­for­mance in Christine

On July 15, 1974, a Sara­so­ta tele­vi­sion net­work reporter named Chris­tine Chub­buck began her live broad­cast by say­ing ​“In keep­ing with Chan­nel 40’s pol­i­cy of bring­ing you the lat­est in ​‘blood and guts,’ and in liv­ing col­or, you are going to see anoth­er first — attempt­ed sui­cide.” Chub­bock then shot her­self. This on-air sui­cide has become the stuff of leg­end, its record­ed tap­ing kept hid­den from the pub­lic and sought out by those with a macabre curios­i­ty. The shock­ing act was also a bit­ter ful­fill­ment of Christine’s final wish to leave a mark on the world.

Anto­nio Cam­pos’ inci­sive film Chris­tine expos­es the anguished woman behind this grim lega­cy with an inti­mate sen­si­tiv­i­ty, care­ful­ly held togeth­er by Rebec­ca Hall’s haunt­ing per­for­mance. Her por­tray­al of Chris­tine has a sear­ing inten­si­ty and crip­pling awk­ward­ness that is ago­niz­ing to observe. Inex­orable dark­ness radi­ates from every pore, seep­ing into her errat­ic con­ver­sa­tions with others.

When I first saw the film, I was eeri­ly struck by how much I relat­ed to Christine’s emo­tion­al expe­ri­ence. While my own men­tal strug­gles had not reached such a dev­as­tat­ing nadir, I often found myself on that same mis­er­able precipice between liv­ing and yearn­ing for relief from depres­sion and self-loathing. Chris­tine was the first time I had ever seen myself on screen – and that scared me.

Depres­sion is a neb­u­lous con­di­tion to get across on film, but Hall remark­ably man­ages to do so in her cor­po­re­al per­for­mance. Chubbuck’s eyes are large, down­cast orbs that bore into who­ev­er approach­es her. Her long, straight black hair hangs limply around her face, match­ing her gan­g­ly limbs. She comes across like a pubes­cent teenag­er uncom­fort­able in her own skin with her hunched shoul­ders, crossed arms, and balled fists.

Her mouth draws down at the cor­ners, pinched into a per­ma­nent frown. Christine’s unap­proach­able phys­i­cal­i­ty extends to her robot­ic way of speak­ing – very low and flat. She finds it dif­fi­cult to take a com­pli­ment or a joke. Hall uses her entire body to cap­ture Christine’s inter­minable dis­com­fort with her place in the world. There is also a meta­phys­i­cal ele­ment to Hall’s por­tray­al of Chris­tine, an invis­i­ble black cloud sur­round­ing her that expands with each dis­com­fit­ing scene.

None of Christine’s every­day jit­ter­i­ness trans­lates to the news cam­era. On the tele­vi­sion screen, her point­ed direct­ness ele­vates the human inter­est sto­ries she is so pas­sion­ate about telling. Cam­pos express­es the dichoto­my between Christine’s per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al life through the rhythms of each scene.

The cam­era moves quick­ly dur­ing the mon­tages of Christine’s man­ic prepa­ra­tions for her news seg­ments, then slows dur­ing more pen­sive, qui­et moments when she is home alone or putting on ther­a­peu­tic pup­pet shows for hos­pi­tal­ized chil­dren. These jux­ta­pos­ing for­mal com­po­si­tions high­light how Chris­tine pours every part of her­self into her work and how much it means to her ver­sus the monot­o­nous soli­tude of her domes­tic existence.

One piv­otal moment that upends Christine’s life is the dis­cov­ery that her right ovary needs to be removed and she must con­ceive with­in the next few years if she ever wants to have chil­dren. Get­ting mar­ried and hav­ing a fam­i­ly is one of Christine’s biggest dreams, but it is com­pound­ed by the fact that she is not – and nev­er has been – sex­u­al­ly active. Some crit­ics argue that Chris­tine places an unnec­es­sary and misog­y­nis­tic empha­sis on her sin­gle­dom, infer­til­i­ty, and sex­u­al inex­pe­ri­ence, but these fac­tors can be very seri­ous and very real con­tri­bu­tions to depression.

They were for me; as a late bloomer, my own lack of roman­tic or dat­ing life impelled my hope­less­ness. Sim­i­lar to Chris­tine, I found myself in a state of arrest­ed devel­op­ment in my mid to late twen­ties. I avoid­ed adult social rit­u­als such as drink­ing and spent a lot of time with my fam­i­ly or alone in my child­hood bed­room. I had very few friends. All I had was an obses­sion with my cre­ative work.

Sev­er­al moments in Chris­tine speak to the lone­li­ness I expe­ri­enced. At a restau­rant, she spies a cou­ple cel­e­brat­ing their anniver­sary. She gazes long­ing­ly at their moony faces from afar, nev­er hav­ing felt the warmth and secu­ri­ty of such affec­tion. These kinds of lov­ing tableaus would make me won­der what was wrong with me. There seemed to be some­thing alchemic oth­er peo­ple had but I didn’t that would make it eas­i­er to flirt or have some­one be inter­est­ed in me.

My emp­ty love life became just anoth­er tal­ly on my list of rea­sons to hate myself. It is very painful and dam­ag­ing to view your­self as unwant­ed and this can impact your inter­ac­tions with oth­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly those you are enam­ored with. Chris­tine has a crush on the cock­sure George (Michael C. Hall) but she has no idea how to behave around him. When­ev­er they are alone, she becomes flus­tered and stand­off­ish, unsure of how to direct her desires. I saw in Hall’s anx­ious behav­iors the same self-con­scious feel­ings of worth­less­ness I faced every day, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for me to con­nect with anyone.

After Chris­tine is turned down for a cov­et­ed pro­mo­tion to become an anchor in Bal­ti­more, her life spi­rals into a ​“cesspool” of mis­ery. When deal­ing with pre-exist­ing depres­sion, every slight — big or small — is seen as con­fir­ma­tion that you are a smudge on the world that must be quick­ly erased. In one scene, Chris­tine masks her roil­ing emo­tions inside – a tidal wave of sad­ness and ven­omous anger – with a small smile and reas­sures her moth­er that she is fine, but Hall’s hol­low eyes say otherwise.

Rewatch­ing Chris­tine at 30 years old feels quite poignant because I am now the same age as when Chris­tine sad­ly took her own life. It was an age she felt ​“too old” not to have met her per­son­al or pro­fes­sion­al goals. It is an age I nev­er expect­ed to reach or find con­tent­ment. Like Chris­tine, I believed I was too ungain­ly to exist and that I would nev­er find love or suc­cess. Life was a Sisyphean ordeal where I always came out on the los­ing end.

My ini­tial view­ing expe­ri­ence of Chris­tine was very cathar­tic: see­ing my spe­cif­ic issues on screen through Hall’s keen authen­tic­i­ty made me feel less alone. I real­ized that if I didn’t seek help, I might suf­fer the same fate. Hall’s riv­et­ing per­for­mance in Chris­tine shook me to the core, and it’s one of the most insight­ful and unnerv­ing por­traits of untreat­ed depres­sion ever com­mit­ted to film.