Christine

Florida newscaster Christine Chubbuck's shocking 1974 on-air suicide understandably colours this dramatisation of her troubled life and times. The focus in this sympathetic portrait is on the emotional and professional turmoil that lead to her tragic ending, rather than the incident itself (of which no footage remains available). Director Antonio Campos's good intentions notwithstanding, there's still something uncomfortable - perhaps even exploitative - here, yet an absolutely mesmerising Rebecca Hall is clearly, deeply invested in the role. She reveals how Chubbuck's high standards and underdeveloped social skills isolated her within the male-dominated newsroom. Although you cannot help watching with hindsight, there's an appreciable effort not to define Chubbuck solely by her awful demise, instead seeing her resist the dumbing-down of TV news (represented by Tracy Letts's ratings-chasing station chief). Flawed but fascinating, it's also a thought-provoking companion piece to the documentary Kate Plays Christine (2016), an unconventional, rather more ambiguous look at the same disturbing events.