Chris­tine

Chances are you hadn’t heard the name Chris­tine Chub­buck before last year. The trag­ic case of a Flori­da news anchor who shot and killed her­self live on tele­vi­sion in 1974 was rel­e­gat­ed to a mor­bid sub­sec­tion of pop­u­lar cul­ture until Robert Greene’s Kate Plays Chris­tine and now Anto­nio Cam­pos’ Chris­tine brought her sto­ry to life on the big screen.

At first glance, the nature of her sui­cide – its extrem­i­ty and exhi­bi­tion­ism – has an almost alien­at­ing effect. Thus, Cam­pos’ first job as a direc­tor is to vivid­ly human­ise Chris­tine Chub­buck (Rebec­ca Hall), to piece togeth­er the decline of her men­tal health, and to treat her with fierce empathy.

The film’s sense of time and place is firm­ly fixed in an authen­tic retro style, with a keen eye for ear­ly ​’70s peri­od trim­mings and a faint­ly sick­ly use of yel­low-green fil­ters. This fideli­ty to the era stretch­es to the Sara­so­ta news sta­tion where Chris­tine works – it’s an envi­ron­ment where, in spite of her intel­li­gence and ambi­tion, she can’t seem to get ahead. Cam­pos treats the details of a sex­ist work­place with an insid­i­ous subtlety.

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The head of the net­work reveals that he pro­mot­ed a less-qual­i­fied man over Chris­tine because he ​“just does what feels right”. When she eschews her typ­i­cal­ly abra­sive man­ner and pleads with her boss to let her fill in as lead anchor, it works. ‘‘A please I can work with,” he tells her reproach­ful­ly. He seems to imply: if only you’d been soft­er and less demand­ing in the first place…

Rebec­ca Hall’s career-best per­for­mance is a phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of inte­ri­or tor­ment. There’s some­thing haunt­ing in the way Cam­pos lights his pro­tag­o­nist, there are always shad­ows in the hol­lows of her eyes. Hall brings real depth and nuance to Chris­tine, her mouth drawn at the cor­ners and her bee­tle-black eyes per­pet­u­al­ly search­ing and wound­ed. Her stiff ges­tures and halt­ed speech show a woman ema­nat­ing – prac­ti­cal­ly throb­bing with – pal­pa­ble anx­i­ety. She’s head­strong and high-func­tion­ing, but lit­er­al­ly runs for the near­est escape route at work functions.

Part of Christine’s trou­ble – her intense bouts of depres­sion – seem to come from the feel­ing that she has some­how failed to nav­i­gate wom­an­hood cor­rect­ly. She’s a vir­gin, and finds dat­ing vir­tu­al­ly impos­si­ble in spite of her crav­ing for human con­tact. She is cold and guard­ed, pro­fes­sion­al­ly dri­ven, and she yearns to suc­ceed. But she strug­gles to acknowl­edge how severe­ly her own men­tal health is lim­it­ing her. Christine’s col­leagues – a well-mean­ing but dense Michael C Hall and the kind­ly Maria Dizzia – are alter­nate­ly con­cerned, per­plexed and help­less around her. Both actors deliv­er well-tuned sup­port­ing performances.

There have been a lot of mur­murs about the poten­tial­ly exploita­tive choice to depict Christine’s on-air sui­cide. But the hor­ror of this scene reveals what is only the final tragedy in a long line of small­er ones – tiny, crush­ing moments of male con­de­scen­sion and mock­ery that inflict spir­i­tu­al dam­age on an already-frag­ile woman.

On 15 July, 1974, Chris­tine Chub­buck took her own life. She is one of count­less vic­tims to have bat­tled with, and suc­cumbed to, depres­sion. Yet her wil­ful­ly pub­lic sui­cide in some way feels like a defi­ant act, one of stag­ger­ing, despair­ing rage.