At one point in the new biopic, Hitchcock, the prolific director (played by Anthony Hopkins) states, "All of us harbor dark recesses of violence and horror. I'm just a man hiding in the corner with a camera, watching." This quote sums up what many of the director's films never failed to capture; not just the unknown violence that people can hold, but also a self-reflexive view for the audience's desire to look. Hitchcock could be considered a pioneer in voyeuristic cinema, especially with his films Psycho and Rear Window.
In Sacha Gervasi's biographical drama, the story details the arduous work that went into the production of Hitchcock's famous film, Psycho. While it's an interesting look into the making of one of the most iconic films in the horror genre, it does spend quite a bit of time dealing with Hitchcock's personal life, which is almost the film's undoing.
Alfred Hitchcock is fresh off the success of North by Northwest. But, he now needs some inspiration for his next project. He begins to read Robert Bloch's latest novel, Psycho. After doing so, he is dead set on making it into a film. While facing some difficulties in production, Hitchcock also comes across some problems in his marriage to Alma Reville (Helen Mirren), who is feeling as if she's being pushed off to the sidelines because of her husband's fame.
Anthony Hopkins brings to realization one of the most famous men who sat behind the camera. Just as the great Hitchcock would address the audience in the trailers to his films, Hopkins addresses the audience in the beginning and the end of the film, carrying an air of mystery and menace in his personality, an air that also permeates Hitchcock's films. He carries the attitude of a voyeur, similar to that of Norman Bates, especially in one scene where he looks through the blinds of his Paramount Studios office and watches a woman as she walks past his window at a distance. He holds a blank expression on his face, making it look like he's not feeling anything, but the viewer knows he is. We see his stark determination as a director when he doesn't get what he wants as he films Psycho's shower scene. He unleashes a bit of fury as he brandishes the knife and encourages his leading lady to give him the blood-curdling screams he wants. Hopkins brings some unsettling and darkly funny quirks to the Hitchcock character, such as surprising people with his presence when they don't notice him at first. We can't be sure if the real Hitchcock was like that, but it wouldn't be surprising if he was.
Helen Mirren gives an expectedly wonderful performance as Hitchcock's resilient wife, Alma. Her character exhibits loyalty and support to her husband, and yet, she has an understandable need to be seen as someone other than a dutiful wife who accompanies Hitchcock to his premieres. She is a wife who feels the need to compete with the blonde leading ladies of Hitchcock's films, exemplified when, during Alfred's first meeting with Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson), Alma goes to the bathroom to apply some lipstick. She has a quiet frustration, one so that you could tell she's upset, but she doesn't become overly mad, all the more evident that she still supports her husband. Despite her troubles, we see some sparks of her wanting to express her creativity as she helps her friend, Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston), write a screenplay, as well as when she assists her husband with editing Psycho.
Scarlett Johansson has the classy personality of Leigh. Her character carries an admirable dedication to her role as the ill-fated Psycho heroine, Marion Crane, and has the womanly gentleness that can be seen in both Leigh and the fictional character of Crane. James D'Arcy comes very close to the mannerisms of Anthony Perkins' Norman Bates, nervously sitting and fidgeting as he has his first meeting with Hitchcock.
The screenplay by John J. McLaughlin, based on Stephen Rebello's book, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, goes between Hitchcock's work on the set of the film and his troubles at home. While it is important to see the influences that his personal life had on the making of Psycho, it sometimes takes away from the intrigue of the movie-making aspect; the film particularly tends to drag in the scenes involving the interactions between Alma and Whitfield. The film sometimes diverges for lengthy periods of time to the tension between Hitchcock and Alma. During this, I wanted to get back to the set of Psycho and see the crafting of the film. By the time we reach the last 10-15 minutes of Hitchcock, and we get back to the studio during the making of the film, it feels rather rushed, and the production details I was hoping to see were left out. If the movie was a half hour longer, the story might have been able to devote as much time to the actual production of Psycho as it did with Hitchcock and Alma's personal lives.
The film also weaves in a few scenes involving Ed Gein (Michael Wincott), an American murderer who influenced the character of Norman Bates. While those bits are interesting, they don't fit in with the rest of the movie, and it feels as though they could be used to make a separate movie about him.
Although Hitchcock isn't quite the exciting and informative biopic that one would hope that deals with one of the greatest filmmakers of all time making his masterfully suspenseful film, the performances pick up the slack where the narrative lags. It doesn't provide as much insight into the making of Psycho as it should, but the production scenes it does have will satisfy any film buff. Hitchcock pulls back the shower curtain on a bit of film history.
Final grade: B
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