Hitchcock Review- By Michael Carlisle

Title: Hitchcock
Year: 2012
Director: Sacha Gervasi
Country: U.S
Language: English

Alfred Hitchcock is one of the greatest British film Directors there ever has been, alongside such legends as Charles Chaplin (City Lights) and Mike Leigh (Topsy Turvey). His well known espionage and psychological thriller films like The 39 Steps and Vertigo have kept me in awe for years. His films have an enduring appeal that stretches across Hollywood and art-house audiences alike. Therefore I was quite intrigued when I heard about that a film was being made about his life and creative process.

Hitchcock is essentially about Alfred Hitchcock's (Anthony Hopkins)  trials and tribulation regarding the messy creative process involved with the making of Psycho. It is also about the relationship between Hitchcock and Alma Reville (Helen Mirren) and a psychological study on the mind of Hitchcock and his need to control the women around him.

The making of Hitchcock's Psycho is actually just a framing narrative for the main story, the shaky relationship between Hitchcock and his wife. This is a bit of a disappointment, because fans of Hitchcock will definitely be attending the film to see more details regarding the production of Psycho. One wonders why the framing narrative wasn't about the making of Vertigo since that film is considered Hitchcock's greatest achievement and the themes of obsession and need to control women definitely carry over onto this film.

Director Sacha Gervasi makes some great criticisms about society with this film. Even though women raise the next generation, support their men and do a ton of other work we don't seem to give them enough credit. In-fact we often look past them and only see the success of their husbands. When a woman gives up a career to be with her children we don't say anything because we expect it, but when a man does the exact same thing he is constantly praised. Hitchcock needs his wife, but the main problem is that he doesn't give his wife any credit for her help. While Hitchcock is about a man, it is definitely a feminist film.

While there are many themes present in this film  they barely scratch the surface. It's a film that is afraid to become too dramatic and thus compromises its potential to be incredibly intelligent by being far too optimistic. As a biographical film the ending is silly because Hitchcock's treatment of women didn't get better, it got much worse. The HBO film The Girl is essentially about how Hitchcock harassed Tipi Hedren on his post- Pyscho film called The Birds.

In conclusion, if you wish to see a great film about the creative process and relationships see Mike Leigh's Topsy Turvey. That being said Hitchcock isn't necessarily a "bad" film, it just isn't "great"The acting by Anthony Hopkins is good, but I think James D'Arcy stole the film with his great impression of Anthony Perkins.  Also, the separation of the beds in the master bedroom, done because in the 50's film censorship code required beds to be seperate, is only clever when it's shown in one 3-5 second  shot. When you have whole scenes in the master bedroom the "seperate beds" become distracting and incredibly cheesy.  2.5/5