Kate Plays Christine

— Oh dear. Sometimes you see a documentary film that you have trouble describing as a documentary and sometimes you see a film you just don’t like watching even if it’s kind of intriguing. That’s the way I felt about “Kate Plays Christine”, Robert Greene’s latest sort-of-documentary. To be fair, I felt the same luke-warm way about “Actress”, at an earlier film of his that was also well received by critics. “Kate Plays Christine” is a look an actress preparing for the role of news reporter Christine Chubbuck in a biopic about her life and on-air suicide in 1974 at the age of 31. By the end, it’s clear the actress and the director were in cahoots to make the audience unsure of the line between documentary and fiction. Ostensibly the film is documenting the actress preparing and researching for the role but there evidently isn’t really a role because the film will never be made, only some scenes of it which will become part of the “documentary” and we're not sure if the actress knew this at the onset or found out later. Add to that the fact that the scenes that are made are so overacted as to be bad, maybe intentionally. It’s all so confusing and that’s evidently was Greene wanted. As with “Actress”, the main character just isn’t very likable and it was hard for me to care much one way or the other. Oh, and the film really could have used a bit more editing—obviously the editor finds the nitty gritty of an actor’s method more interesting than I did (or the 20-30 people I watched bolting for the door about halfway through). It’s an interesting film, but I’m not convinced it’s worth thinking much about. (Shown at True/False Film Fest 2016.)

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[2016. 112 minutes, Written and directed by Robert Greene. Starring Kate Lyn Sheil.]
http://variety.com/2016/film/reviews/kate-plays-christine-review-1201690902/