Hitchcock Review

I took time out to watch Hitchcock--the movie within a movie biopic about one of the cinema's best directors' Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins)--The end result, is a delightful look at how one of the best films ever, almost never made it to the big screen.

The film was originally titled Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of 'Psycho' and explores how the 1960 classic Psycho was actually quite a departure for Hitch in that it was a more explicitly shocking film which was meant to compete with other low-budget horror pictures of the day. The film also weaves in the relationship between Hitchcock and his wife Alma Reville (Helen Mirren)

Hopkins is nearly unrecognized as Hitch in prosthetic make-up by Peter Montagnay and Gregory Nicotero--Speaking in the same deliberate cadence---Hopkins clearly relished the chance to play the director. This is especially evident in scenes where Hitch takes on  Geoffrey Shurlock (Kurtwood Smith), the head of the Motion Picture Production Code--an organization that predated the modern day Motion Picture Association of America

 For her part, Mirren goes toe to toe with Hopkins as the tough yet vulnerable Alma who loves him yet finds it difficult living in his long shadow. Mirren's scenes with Danny Huston as Whitfield Cook--with whom Hitch is convinced Alma is having an affair-are also top notch. Some of this stuff, it should be noted, is based on assumption.

For the most part the rest of the casting is spot on. Scarlett Johansson and James D'Arcy as stars Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins make for good look a-likes both in form and function--though I suspect some of D'Arcy scenes remain on the cutting room floor. Jessica Biel seems totally miscast as Vera Miles in the film. She actually made me cringe when she appears--thankfully her screen time is perfunctory.

Sacha Gervasi directs the film--based on author Stephen Rebello's 1990 book which Black Swan co-writer John McLaughlin and Tom Thayer have adapted with author Rebello--2 ways. When the film is concerned with matters of Psycho a breezy style is employed, When things shift to show the effects the pic had on the marriage of Hitch and Alma--things slow down a bit. The tactic works well and makes perfect sense.

Anyone who has read Rebello's book as I have will miss certain aspects of Psycho's production that are not in the film like those involving the legendary Saul Bass who handled the storyboards and title sequence for the film and was instrumental in constructing the infamous shower sequence. Ultimately Bass felt he didn't get enough credit

Unfortunately the filmmakers were not able to secure the right to use even a single frame from Psycho--thus for Hitchcock's final act--the music and sound from the masterpiece had to be recreated.

Despite the liberties taken on the film, Hitchcock is an enjoyable biopic meshed with film history. Hopkins and Mirren make it work.