I considered seeing Christine in the theater for the same reason that I ultimately decided not to: there were two films about the same person at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, and I wanted to see both in one sitting so I could compare and contrast them, but only Christine was playing at theaters nearby, not Kate Plays Christine, so I decided to wait. I never heard of Christine Chubbuck before 2016 so I had no expectations before watching these films.
Christine stars Rebecca Hall as the titular character in the biographical drama loosely based on Chubbuck’s life, an ambitious investigative reporter whose mental health issues hinder her from achieving her goals and connecting with others. It is a well-executed film, but not a particularly enjoyable or enlightening one. From the opening shots, it is clear that we are not so much chronicling an emotional deterioration to starting with the assumption that she is mad, but for some reason, no one around her can see the obvious truth and get her to a psych ward. The audience is just watching the parts that make up the whole tragedy, and the exacerbating factors only hasten the foregone conclusion. When the expected happens, the movie can finally end.
For me, Christine was a journey in disappointment. I was psyched that the opening scenes showed a woman more invested in her work, but it soon gave way to the stereotypical lonely, crazy single girl who uses work as an unsatisfactory substitute to an empty social life. I wanted her mental deterioration to have few if no external precipitating factors so that we could get a portrait of a person suffering from mental illness instead of having an escape hatch of other factors to explain the denouement, but I was denied. If the movie reflects reality, and Christine was the stereotypical, unhappy, unfulfilled, hysterical woman, then I suppose that I should shut up. Still I can’t help but notice that real mad men are depicted as revolutionary individuals whose inability to fit into society emerges into something creatively rich and unique that is still somehow an achievement in spite of tragedy whereas real mad women are destructive and pathetic, a cautionary tale. I’m sure that it is just a coincidence that the threat of infertility is a turning point for women characters in fictional and real characters.
A hit dog hollers, and I was not expecting that the list of Christine’s problems sounds like my autobiography: professionally stagnant, virgin, cares for her mother, abrasive, work obsessed. Perhaps what saves me is that I do not want to become a mother, am not into puppets and have no crushes. Maybe she needed a couple of cats. Kidding aside, society is extremely comfortable with writing off certain types of women as crazy, especially when the women’s message is true and something that no one wants to hear, so I get defensive at depictions like Christine because I’m used to being dismissed for not being a socially acceptable version of a woman, but additionally as someone who swears by the power of pharmaceuticals, I periodically check in with a therapist to make sure that others don’t have a point. I am mentally competent and not suffering from a chemical imbalance in need of a manufactured supplement. So far the verdict is that I am healthy and surrounded by….well, you can google Freud’s quote.
Christine explicitly tackles the idea that some of the titular character’s difficulties stem from not being like the woman sportscaster, sexy and desired, whereas the guys can just slack and rely on her to do the work, but dismisses it when another work colleague, a friend and ally, begins to rise in the ranks based on her work. I am not certain, but this friend may be a fictional foil; however she does have a cat, which lends credence to my earlier theory that cats are the key to stability. Still the film felt the need to create a fictional character to conflate Christine’s failure to succeed at work with her mental disability instead of attributing it to her not fitting gender norms, which can be independent from her mental difficulties. Americans instinctually credit systematic problems to individual failings. So while the film attributes some of Christine’s obstacles as a backlash to feminism, ultimately she is framed as the problem, and her problem just happens to coincide with many of the traits that society finds undesirable in women, but are desirable traits in men. The movie gaslights the historical figure, who was actually friends with the sportscaster. The sportscaster was a frenemy, couldn’t stand Chubbuck by the end, but was never honest about their relationship, her career and relationship goals and was actually working against Chubbuck while feigning cordiality whereas the fictional version paints Christine as a person incapable of friendship and defensively lashes out at those who love and support her. I don’t think that it is accidental or due to time constraints that her most open relationship is with her mother and is still rife with tension, but the film omits her close relationship with her brother.
When her colleagues are disturbed by her proposal to make mini-movies reenacting crimes, I just thought, “So she invented Unsolved Mysteries and all those primetime real crime shows? That is awesome!” I know that the film wanted to signal that she was disturbed, and the tone change in her work product was a warning, but inadvertently it may have falsely depicted her as a pioneer of broadcast television, which is unlikely given her short life, but who knows. My main problem with her depiction is that the movie shows her obsession with work as an excuse to not socialize, but simultaneously shows her running away from interviews or refusing to do work. Real workaholics don’t act like that.
My criticism is directed at the narrative choices, not Hall’s depiction, which is stellar. She completely disappears into her character, and while she does ratchet up her intensity as the movie unfolds, I’m disappointed that she didn’t get more opportunity to explore the nuance of her character before going full tilt. I did find value in the film. Christine can also be seen as a cautionary tale about being too focused and rigid, believing that there is a correlation between hard work and reward or such a thing as rules, being too invested in work or in convincing others that your views are right, not being so self conscious. The ultimate lesson of Christine is that while she eschewed conventional standards for herself, she wanted conventional rewards at work and in love instead of committing to live a thoroughly, complete odd life and learning not to be disappointed when it did not result in normal remuneration.
The end of Christine is the most incongruous, last ditch attempt to draw broad conclusions about the pitfalls of being a woman in television journalism by pairing the Mary Tyler Moore theme song with the reality of Christine’s foil living her earlier suggestion to Christine on how to cope with a bad day. It is a sardonic take on the humorous image of the newswoman and the tragic reality. The film seems to suggest that there is something inherently mentally hazardous to being primarily a career woman instead of a significant other. The implicit question seems to be will Jean be next to fall prey to the madness inherent in the impossibility of finding fulfillment in her career.
While it may be an unflinching portrait, Christine is a wholly unsympathetic one that feels more allied with those who must endure the titular character’s mood swings than the main character. Though I could appreciate the execution, I found it a thoroughly grim and bleak take on a life.