As we bring 2016 to a close, Esquire.com looks back at the films, albums, and television shows that have shaped our year and will have a lasting influence on the culture at large. Read the complete series of essays here.

There's a perfect scene in James L. Brooks's 1987 romantic comedy Broadcast News in which Paul, the head of the news division of an anonymous network, says to a producer, Jane (the amazing Holly Hunter), "It must be nice to always believe you know better, to always think you're the smartest person in the room." Jane has just finished a rant to Paul's direction, criticizing his decision to cast the utterly handsome, if dimly vacant, Tom (William Hurt) in the lead anchor role of a breaking news report. "No," Jane replies after a quick sign on her face that the comment has stung her. "It's awful," she laments.

It's a very funny scene, one that expertly establishes the tone of the film and Jane's character in particular. Jane is the smartest person in the room, always, and she's blissfully allowed not just to express her talent and genius, but she's also rewarded for it. She rises in the ranks at the network, along with the poised and polished Tom; her best friend Aaron, however, played with schlubby and neurotic perfection by Albert Brooks, is left behind despite his intelligence. He's simply not a fit for network news, it seems, or the corporate world. He lacks Tom's grace and good looks, and also Jane's charm; his caustic attitude often overshadows the fact that he's mostly right about everything, too.

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Antonio Campos's Christine might be the best film about television news since Broadcast News, and it features a protagonist that, like Jane, is the smartest person in the room—a line that another character uses to describe her. But Christine resembles, in tone, that other classic film on the subject: Network. It's not as satirical as either of those films, but it certainly lacks Broadcast News' breezy, light-hearted style. It is, after all, about the true story of Christine Chubbuck, who in 1974 gained notoriety when she shot herself in the head on live television. Chubbuck briefly became a national news item, but soon faded into the annals of media history.

Christine is one of two films about Chubbuck released this year (the other, Kate Plays Christine, is a pseudo-documentary that says more about the actress who plays the role than Chubbuck herself). Here, Christine is played by Rebecca Hall with a terrifying brilliance. She's both glamorous and awkward, with a hard-edged and commanding presence that seems to overshadow her scene partners even when Hall's tall, lithe frame attempts to fold in on itself to express Chubbuck's overwhelming anxiety.

The fact that Christine's ending is so expected sets the film up for failure, which Campos narrowly avoids. It's particularly tough to capture a character's inner turmoil on film; movies about depression and anxiety are not very fun to watch. Christine builds a bit like an emotional thriller; it's shot with a distinctive style that nails the early '70s vibes—a mixture of cheery optimism and fairly obvious paranoia and discomfort. And we get inside of Christine's stormy mind in ways that don't feel invasive or cruel. There's an obvious irony here: it's a movie about a woman who, pressured by the increasingly exploitative nature of network news, killed herself on air. It'd be easy for Christine to be as equally exploitative of its subject matter.

The Orchard

Yet Christine treats its subject with incredible empathy. Christine has clear talent. But Christine's problem is that she's too smart for her own good; she often doesn't know how to express her intelligence in ways that aren't off-putting. She regularly ignores direct orders from her boss (played by the eternally grumpy Tracy Letts), she has a disdain for the changing attitudes of the media and little interest in learning new technologies that will give her an edge in her position (a stunning parallel to much of the traditional media's opposition to digital advances), and she manages to alienate her allies at work and at home.

The tragedy of Christine is a woman who loses hope, and through that existential defeat reacts with a horrific act—making herself the story.

Through Hall's funny and humane performance (and a great script by first-time screenwriter Craig Shilowich), Christine's flaws don't overshadow the facts that she could be a little better at her job, could perhaps be nicer to her co-workers and her mother, and could possibly try to be more positive about the world around her. But the fact remains that the world has been cruel to Christine, too; amid her professional struggles, her personal life comes to a crashing halt when her doctor discovers a tumor, which must be treated by removing one of her ovaries. Suddenly her status as a woman is not just a factor at work; she's suddenly at risk of not being able to have a child, which only puts more pressure on her to accomplish another feat she isn't even sure she wants to achieve.

The tragedy of Christine is a woman who loses hope, and through that existential defeat reacts with a horrific act—making herself the story, rather than digging to find the story she should tell instead. Anyone who has dealt with depression knows that there's a self-centeredness that's inherent to the illness; it's difficult to see beyond yourself when that's the thing that consumes your hateful thoughts. Christine also points to a fact that most journalists often refuse to acknowledge: Their vocation is fueled by a search for truth and justice, sure, but the quest for bylines and posts behind the news desk is also often fueled by a narcissistic tendency. (As Aaron says in Broadcast News when Tom includes a shot of his tearful reaction to a rape victim's story: "Let's never forget, we're the real story—not them.")

The Orchard

It's been a bad year for the media, but Christine blessedly shows that journalists are people, too—for better or for worse. Christine is flummoxed by change, particularly when her expectations aren't met. She also cares less about what her audience wants and more about what she wants to give her audience, a sentiment that rarely succeeds in an industry that is still struggling to survive while it figures out how to sell its information to its consumers. Christine can't take the pressure she faces at work—maybe she's too self-centered, too myopic, too scatterbrained, or simply suffering from an illness than clouds her judgment. Either way, she's fatally flawed, and she goes to extreme lengths to express her inner turmoil: by forcing it upon those around her, even the strangers who make up her audience, in her final act of alienation.

If I learned anything this year, it's that kindness is difficult—both in directing it toward others and toward myself. That's a lesson that reverberated when I watched Christine for the second time this week, and I couldn't help but relate to the pressure Christine felt from others and ultimately put upon herself. Christine the character—and the real Chubbuck—was flawed, of course, as much as the rest of us. She wanted so much to make her mark, to create a lasting impact, and to push herself to do great work and, in turn, gain recognition for her efforts. She did, in a way, but she went to brutal and discomforting means to bring those ends.

Yet, at the end of the day, her story may ultimately be forgotten, resigned to being a blip in history. The smartest people in the room are often worried about their legacies, but the most practical people know that there's no way to ensure that the way we want to be seen and remembered is ever completely up to us.

Tyler Coates Senior Culture Editor Tyler Coates is the Senior Culture Editor at Esquire.com.

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