HITCHCOCK (2012)

Genre: Drama
Director: Sacha Gervasi
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, Danny Huston, Toni Collette, Jessica Biel, Michael Stuhlbarg, James D'Arcy, Michael Wincott, Richard Portnow, Kurtwood Smith
Runtime: 1 hr 39 mins
Rating: PG13 (Brief Nudity)
Released By: 20th Century Fox
Official Website: http://www.hitchcockthemovie.com/

Opening Day: 14 February 2013

Synopsis: HITCHCOCK is a love story about one of the most influential filmmakers of the last century, Alfred Hitchcock and his wife and partner Alma Reville. The film takes place during the making of Hitchcock’s seminal movie PSYCHO.

Movie Review:

Flip through any book that deals with classical film theory or history and the film Psycho is sure to pop up in more case studies than one. Almost every lesson in filmmaking can be found in this single title alone—montage, editing, sound, scoring, suspense, plot, climax, and even marketing! The fascination with this film and its infamous shower scene has become as much a cultural icon as it is synonymous with the birth of the slasher genre, and the film itself underwent a shot-to-shot re-make by art house director Gus Van Sant in 1998.

Building the film Hitchcock around the wide interest in one of the director’s most prominent films, then, seems an intuitive move for director Sacha Gervasi. Not so much a biopic as much as it is a snapshot of Alfred Hitchcock’s life during the period in which he made Psycho, Hitchcock unfolds swiftly, and Gervasi wastes no time in getting to the many controversies and urban legends surrounding the film and its creator.

Writers John J. McLaughlin and Stephen Rebello are well familiar with the copious production notes and essays written about Psycho, and Hitchcock is littered with many juicy stories about its making. Some of these include the particularly challenging stairway scene involving Inspector Milton Arbogast, the film’s censorship woes, as well as the many pranks that the cast and crew played on the set of Psycho.

At the end of the day, however, the film is about Hitchcock, and Hopkins is charming in the titular role. He maintains the Hitchcockian stone-faced demeanour throughout, rarely blinking, and pairing the director’s signature paunch with his trademark stiffness. Thankfully, the audience is afforded not just a stock caricature of the man, but also facets of his complex nature. There’s no shortage of Freudian and Oedipus baggage in Gervasi’s portrayal of Hitchcock in a few surreal scenes, where Hitchcock is shown vicariously dreaming and hallucinating through the twisted fantasies of his male leads and harbouring inexplicable obsessions with a blonde woman of mystery. Laura Mulvey will be well-pleased that her theory on voyeurism and an obsession with the female subject, discussed in Vertigo (1958), is re-explored in the story of its creator.

While Hopkins is apt at conveying Hitchcock’s inner struggles through the man’s stone-faced façade, he sometimes brings a sense of self-consciousness to the endeavour that detracts from its authenticity. The scales tip a little too, whenever his demeanour is milked to some strange comic effect. Granted, Hitchcock himself is quite the character, but the scenes reek of the pandering, bankable “safeness” of Hollywood fare, which is a little insultingly un-Hitchcockian. A good film takes risks, as Hitchcock says in the film, and Hitchcock the movie isn’t really risky in any respect.

Gervasi kills two birds in working the more complex aspects of character development into Hitchcock’s experience in making Psycho. But he, in fact, pulls off a hat-trick by balancing three large story arcs rather successfully, with the third showing how Hitchcock’s wife, Alma Reville has always played a pivotal role in the success of the great director. Casted for the sole reason that only an actress of her calibre and experience could hold her own alongside Sir Anthony Hopkins, Dame Helen Mirren is excellent as Alma, although her build is not quite as petite as the real-life character. The film packs in a startling amount of depth into Alma’s story, showing her struggles as her youth fades and melts into competition with Hitchcock’s nubile leading ladies, temptation with adultery, and a desire to step out from the shadows of the great director. For all the marriage angst explored in Hitchcock, the film could have been called Hitchcock and Alma, just like the HBO film, Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012), about author Ernest Hemingway and his journalist wife.

The mise-en-scènein Hitchcock gloriously harks back to the days of the Hollywood studio system, the colours are of the rich ‘60s and Scarlett Johansson is nicely cast as the perky Janet Leigh. It’s all very neat and economical, and in place of answers, leaves breadcrumbs of clues to the mystery that is Alfred Hitchcock.

Movie Rating:

(Hitchcock is a good film; easily enjoyed even by those not thoroughly familiar with the auteur’s work, but the burden of homage that rests on this humble film is a little too pronounced at times)

Review by Tay Huizhen