Posted By Dave Howlett on March 21, 2013

The second of two high-profile 2012 films about “The Master Of Suspense” (the other being The Girl, the HBO movie starring Toby Jones), Hitchcock finds the director seeking to challenge moviegoers’ expectations about his work in the wake of North By Northwest‘s blockbuster success (one of the espionage-themed projects he immediately turns down is an adaptation of the Ian Fleming novel Casino Royale). Finding inspiration in a lurid Robert Bloch novel based on the crimes of Ed Gein, Hitchcock announces Psycho as his next project. Hitchcock (the director, played by Anthony Hopkins) feels that he can bring some legitimacy to the frowned-upon horror genre by turning in a piece of astounding craftsmanship, and history has obviously proven him right. But Hitchcock (the film, directed by Sasha Gervasi), while well-intentioned, perfectly cast, and easy on the eyes, doesn’t do a lot to set itself apart from too many of its biopic contemporaries.

Like the recent, far superior Lincoln, Hitchcock chooses to focus on a pivotal few months in the life of a famous figure rather than the figure’s entire life. As much as it focuses on the development of Psycho, the film is as much about the director’s marriage to Alma Reville (Helen Mirren), a complicated arrangement that’s as much a creative partnership as it is a romantic one. While Hitchcock obsesses over his leading ladies, Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson) and Vera Miles (Jessica Biel), Reville dances around the idea of an affair with novelist Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston). Hitchcock‘s best scenes are in the middle, as the director’s battles with the studio and the censors are contrasted with the game of sexual one-upmanship Hitch and Alma play with each other. Each suspects the other’s yearning for marital indiscretion, and they taunt each other with how much they know about what’s really going on in each other’s hearts. It’s a delight to watch Hopkins and Mirren trade barbs, and to watch the famous Psycho cast be resurrected by Johannsen, Biel, and a scarily accurate James D’arcy (Cloud Atlas) as Anthony Perkins, all of whom look terrific in Mad Men-era chic.

But, at its heart, Hitchcock has a simple, not-especially-insightful central idea—fiercely individualistic and creatively powerful in their own right (when Hitch takes ill, Alma strides onto the set and takes over, rallying the troops and rescuing the picture from studio interference), the couple was never better than when they were creating together. A more interesting film is hinted at in a strangely self-referential subplot that sees the director taking advice from a ghostly Gein (Michael Wincott). Anthony Hopkins is physically transformed by the remarkable prosthetic makeup of Gregory Nicotero and Howard Berger (The Walking Dead), but as good as his performance is, you can still see and hear him underneath it all—it’s like someone projected the image of the famed director over the acclaimed actor. Director Sasha Gervasi is perhaps best known for his first film, the headbanging documentary Anvil! The Story Of Anvil, and like Hitchcock when he made Psycho, he clearly wants to try something new. But with Hitchcock, he’s taken the story of a great director and made a movie that is merely good.

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Categories: Movies, Reviews
Tags: Alfred Hitchcock, Alma Reville, Anthony Hopkins, Anthony Perkins, Anvil! The Story of Anvil, Casino Royale, Cloud Atlas, Danny Huston, Ed Gein, Gregory Nicotero, Helen Mirren, Hitchcock, Howard Berger, Ian Fleming, James D'Arcy, Janet Leigh, Jessica Biel, Michael Wincott, North by Northwest, Psycho, Robert Bloch, Sasha Gervasi, Scarlett Johansson, Vera Miles, Whitfield Cook