For some reason Craig Shilowich decided to write a screenplay about Christine Chubbuck, portraying her as an uptight, unfriendly and mentally unstable yet ambitious TV journalist. Apart from doing some education work at a kids' hospital (even that becomes increasingly bizarre), there's nothing nice about her. Finding out she needs an operation which may render her infertile, and having failed to secure a job promotion (why does she think she deserves one? - she's crap, really) she decides to shoot herself in the head on live TV, a vile thing to do to her colleagues and viewers (what if kids were watching, for example?)
Actually when she does this, I found it quite funny - because we don't care for the character at all.
The whole thing was pointless from any view you look at it. Seventies design and costumes good.
Rebecca Hall puts everything into it but I've no idea at all why she should want to be in it. She looks like a witch, a horror movie character or a serial killer.
With Michael C Hall, Tracy Letts (her boss), Maria Dizzia, J. Smith-Cameron (mother).
Her coldness and icy demeanor just made me feel even worse for her. When she snaps at everyone around her I don't see a mean bitch, I see a woman who is enormously self-critical and guarded from what was clearly a lifetime of the world making her feel like she wasn't good enough for anything that she wanted to do with her life. The tragedy of it all was that she was too closed up in herself to believe anyone who offered her help or support was genuine.
ReplyDeleteI thought this film was incredible and overlooked, and just goes to show that broken people aren't the sad and delicate souls we see in a lot of mainstream movies. Most of them are angry and bitter.