Christine
Orchard, The | Release Date: October 14, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
72
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
29
Mixed:
4
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Screen DailyTim GriersonJan 26, 2016
A magnificent performance from Rebecca Hall is Christine’s clear highlight, but the entire ensemble shines in this stripped-down but deeply sympathetic drama. Read full review
100
The GuardianNigel M SmithJan 26, 2016
In Hall, [Campos] has the perfect actor to convey Chubbuck’s internal struggle in a manner that’s devastating. Read full review
90
TimeStephanie ZacharekOct 14, 2016
Hall’s Christine draws us closer rather than pushing us away — this performance is a quiet, multidimensional marvel. Read full review
90
We Got This CoveredDavid JamesOct 9, 2016
Christine is a fine piece of cinema, not only boasting one of the best performances of the year to date, but also tackling a difficult subject with ample empathy and intelligence. Read full review
90
VarietyGuy LodgeJan 26, 2016
Far from the austere death march it might threaten to be on paper, this is a thrumming, heartsore, sometimes viciously funny character study, sensitive both to the singularities of Chubbuck’s psychological collapse and the indignities weathered by any woman in a 1970s newsroom. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezNov 16, 2016
She's such a fascinating, faceted character that halfway through "Christine" you almost forget about what's coming. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldNov 3, 2016
It’s Hall’s performance that jolts Christine, carrying the movie on her slumped shoulders. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniOct 27, 2016
Rebecca Hall is wondrous as Christine, delivering a sly performance that brings out her character's extraordinary intelligence. Her Christine has a peculiar brand of dry, subversive humor that takes aim at various absurdities of modern life and mass media. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerOct 14, 2016
It’s to Hall’s credit that, in the end, we see Chubbuck as a victim of no one so much as herself. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloOct 12, 2016
While the film does depict the suicide, that moment isn’t nearly as memorable as a pitch-perfect coda involving a fairly minor character, which combines generosity, poignance, and rueful irony in unnerving proportions. Read full review
83
The PlaylistNoel MurrayJan 27, 2016
Is Christine voyeuristic, or even exploitative? Very possibly. But it’s also vivid, intense, and artful. Read full review
80
EmpireDavid ParkinsonFeb 6, 2017
Impeccably played by Rebecca Hall, this is a thoughtful reflection on life’s casual cruelties and how little attitudes towards women have changed since Watergate. Read full review
80
The TelegraphTim RobeyFeb 2, 2017
Christine, which asks a top-notch Rebecca Hall to play out the last days of Chubbuck’s life, dares us to hope that it’s somehow about a different Christine Chubbuck – one who made it out the other side of her own tragedy. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangOct 20, 2016
By turns coolly observed and disquietingly compassionate — qualities that also describe Rebecca Hall’s brilliant central performance — the movie drifts alongside its subject, Charon-like, through the hell of her last weeks. Read full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneOct 17, 2016
How far the story of Christine Chubbuck ripples outward, registering the cultural stresses of its time (and ours), I’m not sure. As an eyewitness report of a lonely soul on the rack, however, the movie is hard to beat. Read full review
80
CineVueBen NicholsonSep 17, 2016
It is Hall for which this film will be sought out and remembered, and she elicits such a great deal of empathy as to make the inevitable climax all the more gut-wrenching. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperNov 17, 2016
Rebecca Hall gives one of the great performances of the year as the title character in Christine, an intense, stomach-churning, unblinking drama. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallNov 10, 2016
Christine is a movie as bleak and withdrawn as its protagonist, with Hall making the most of her best role in years, a slow death spiral that's hard to look away from. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleDavid LewisOct 20, 2016
The final frames, which hark back to an iconic TV show, are audacious, yet like everything else in this movie, they are skillfully unadorned. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Johanna SchnellerOct 13, 2016
Hall creates a fierce, uncompromising portrait of a woman who was prescient enough to see the dark places her culture was headed – the logical end game of our “if it bleeds, it leads” obsessions – but also damaged enough to succumb to them. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattOct 13, 2016
Shot in the goldenrod-and-avocado palette of the ’70s and dabbed with incongruous soft-rock lullabies, the movie itself is both painfully intimate and strangely opaque on the subject of mental illness, taking us deep inside Christine’s disintegration even as it never quite figures out what it wants to say about it. Read full review
75
IndieWireEric KohnJan 26, 2016
An expertly crafted noir-like depiction of Chubbuck's descent into psychological duress, Campos' grim character study makes up for an occasionally stifling icy tone with a stunning lead performance by Hall. Read full review
70
TheWrapRobert AbeleOct 12, 2016
While Christine the movie may leave you in a coldly analytical space about sad people — even its dollops of humor have a chilliness — Christine the woman stays with you, thanks to a career-best performance from Hall that’s stark, thoughtful, and mesmerizing. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJan 26, 2016
While Campos' tone and storytelling are not always the smoothest, and some of his choices are perplexing...he slowly builds a detailed mosaic of his central character and the environment she's so determined to conquer. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenNov 9, 2016
Fascinating, troubling, and dutiful, Christine, if nothing else, houses a great performance. Read full review
67
ConsequenceJustin GerberJan 26, 2016
A subplot and a longer-than-necessary runtime threaten to undercut Hall’s performance, but in the end the movie succeeds as a solid investigation into the day-to-day life of one suffering from depression. Read full review
67
The Film StageJordan RaupJan 26, 2016
Despite a compelling performance, we rarely get an authentic sense of the psychology behind her eyes. Read full review
63
Boston GlobePeter KeoughOct 20, 2016
Campos really doesn’t need to tack on such heavy-handed irony as the scene near the end of a disconsolate woman eating ice cream and singing along with the theme song of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyOct 14, 2016
Christine, centered on a riveting and at times unbearably emotional performance by Rebecca Hall, attempts to give a three-dimensional and respectful-yet-honest portrait of a complex woman. Sometimes the film is successful in this, sometimes it's not. Read full review
60
The New York TimesManohla DargisOct 13, 2016
Even as Ms. Hall’s performance makes you believe that something profound is at stake, the movie noncommittally nibbles at the edge of larger meaning, nodding at current events. Read full review
50
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanOct 20, 2016
A great performance does not necessarily make for great tragedy, and Christine remains mired in the minutiae of its portrait of a doomed, bitter young woman. Read full review
40
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonOct 13, 2016
By the end of Christine — and of Christine — the reporter is at once burdened with too many signifiers (is Chubbuck a tragic heroine of second-wave feminism? of our current macabre newsscape? of untreated depression?) and a cipher. As with most biopics that resort to maximalism, more is less. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua RothkopfOct 12, 2016
A superior and recent take on this material, Robert Greene’s experimental "Kate Plays Christine," is worth seeking out, both for its sympathy and deeper grasp of Chubbuck’s unknowable pain. Ironically, Christine’s director Antonio Campos (Afterschool) is capable of exactly that kind of riskiness, but the instinct abandons him here. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineMatt BrennanOct 10, 2016
It largely fails to animate Christine Chubbuck's inner turmoil, focusing instead on broad, blunt externalities. Read full review
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