Hollywood Reporter (2012) - Hitchcock
Details
- magazine article: Hitchcock
- author(s): Todd McCarthy
- journal: Hollywood Reporter (16/Nov/2012)
- issue: volume 418, page 116
- journal ISSN: 0018-3660
- publisher: BPI Communications
- keywords: Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV), Alfred Hitchcock, Alma Reville, Anthony Hopkins, Anthony Perkins, Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, Bernard Herrmann, Helen Mirren, James D'Arcy, Janet Leigh, Jessica Biel, Lew Wasserman, Marnie (1964), North by Northwest (1959), Paramount Pictures, Psycho (1960), Robert Bloch, Sacha Gervasi, Scarlett Johansson, The Birds (1963), Tippi Hedren, Vera Miles, Vertigo (1958)
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Article
Hitchcock
Sacha Gervasi's entertaining biopic on the relationship between the filmmaker and his wife is absorbing and aptly droll By Todd McCarthy
The most publicly recognizable director during his lifetime has now, 32 years after his death, become the subject of two films set at nearly the same time: HBO's just aired The Girl and Hitchcock.
Both stress a creepy vibe concerning the master manipulator's obsession with his blond female stars, but Fox Searchlight's big‑screen effort elevates itself well above that preoccupation by warmly examining Alfred Hitchcock's deeply complicit relationship with his wife, Alma. This narrative directing debut by Sacha Gervasi (Anvil! The Story of Anvil) remains absorbing and droll despite a few dramatic ups and downs ‑ and is led by large performances from Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren.
While The Girl focused on the director's infatuation with his discovery Tippi Hedren during the making of The Birds and Marnie in the early '60s, Hitchcock looks at the period just before, in 1959‑60, when he made a bold departure from his normal methods with Psycho. Because of legal restrictions, no footage from the actual Psycho could be shown, and the lack of detail about the production of this suspense classic is a disappointment on a certain level. But Gervasi and screenwriter John J. McLaughlin (Black Swan) take the alternate tack of delving into their subject's imagined mental and emotional state at the time, which, however speculative, exerts a lurid pull.
Perhaps the most fanciful of the script'...
