Review of Hitchcock (2012) by Stephanie B — 08 Aug 2013

The film Hitchcock was a mediocre adaptation of the Master of Suspense's life during the making of one of most famous movies, Psycho. If it was not for Helen Mirren's role playing Alma the movie would have been a complete disaster.

The scene where Alma and Alfred are at the premiere for North by Northwest and the reporter asks Hitch is he should stop doing movies because he is sixty years old (and therefore too old) was extremely exaggerated for Hollywood/cinema and no response stops the viewer awkwardly .

Along with the overly elaborated costumes for that scene along with many others scenes. One technical problem with the movie were the flashback scenes with Hitchcock and Ed Gein, who was the inspiration for Psycho, and the scenes themselves were creepy and distracting from the overall plot.

Even though the movie was trying to show how Hitch was diving deep into his dark side, the images should have been darker literally and figuratively. The cinematography was decent in the beach scenes and inside the studio shots.

Hopkins opening and closing monologues were painful to watch, he didn't even come close to nailing Hitchcock's dry British scene of humor. The only plus side to the movie was the scene where Hitch was waiting for the screams in the screening of Psycho and he was making a joyful stabbing motions to mimic the shower scene's and therefore celebrating the movie's success.

The cast was really good especially Jessica Biel playing Vera Miles and Scarlet Johansson playing Janet Leigh. I enjoyed seeing Helen Mirren's depiction of Alma taking charge in the studio when Hitch was home sick.

I also liked the inclusion of Hitch's white dogs in the bedroom scene. I applaud the movie's storyline to examine Hitch and Alma's personal life and the sacrifices they made in order to make Psycho.

The script was decent, but the final picture was lacking organization in the storyline and Alma's meetings with Wit, made the overall plot confusing for the audience.