Hitchcock Review

• 1st Feb 2013

Hitchcock takes place as the great auteur starts looking for his latest film project after he has come off the success of North By Northwest. At 60 year’s old Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) isn’t having much of an easy time of it from the studio – and so with the aid of his long suffering wife Alma (Helen Mirren) they set about raising and staking the money on a film that could well be the finish of his career.

As tempers flare, illness bounds and the past surfaces, Hitchcock finds himself psychologically at his wits end with the stress, and often fantasising about the man, Ed Gein (Michael Wincott), on whom the story he is concocting is based.

Hopkins has clearly studied the manner of the director and has the voice and mannerisms down, although from time to time his voice slips out, but generally is a strong performer. Helen Mirren present a more problematic performance that seems more identified with the issues at hand than with the actual person she is playing. A more subtle and perhaps honest portrayal was done by Imelda Staunton in the recent “The Girl” which also features great performance of Hitchcock, but we will let the comparisons rest there. Hitchcock deserves to be taken on its own merits of which there are many.

James d’Arcy channels Anthony Perkins to the highest amount of camp possible; Scarlet Johansson does a decent enough job of portraying Janet Leigh, but perhaps her role requires little in the way of drama when it comes to the relationship with her director. In fact it is so harmonious you sometimes wonder why spend any time with her at all. There is perhaps a glimpse of the dramatic when the infamous shower scene is being shot, but it is so fleeting that it barely registers as a strong note. What does impress much more and is something perhaps that could have been of greater focus is Hitchcock’s relationship with the supporting actress Vera miles (Jessica Biel) which is littered much more heavily with a tormented past and a jagged present.

In the end we have a script tailored to suit particular issues that have been neatly surrounded Hitchcock’s biggest gamble. For the sake of this the drama works well and there is enough insight into the world that he inhabits and the one he controls. It isn’t likely to offend and enrage fans, but perhaps there are other films out there that can push the biography boundaries further with this director – as there is still a fascinating amount of history yet to be told through fiction.

Steven Hurst