Hitchcock (2012)

I was going to buy this but decided to rent it instead from my local library and now I am glad I did."Psycho" is a masterpiece and I wasn't expecting a distracting story about Alma.It is a fun film but Hitchcock fans - beware. Don't expect too much.

As someone who's seen a lot of Hithcock's films I was very interested to see something that reflected the lift the director. It was certainly well known that he had an interest in several of the actresses that worked for him and had a thing for young blonde haired women. Although the characterization seems to go over the top with the introduction of Ed Gein into the movie, it is still interesting. I don't think Hitchcock had some kind of obsession with murder - he just found his niche in the movie business and stuck with. Anthony Hopkins is brilliant in this film with an amazing portrayal of the famous director - at least as how the public seemed to view him. Helen Mirren was also very good as was the rest of the cast. A very interesting movie and well shot.

'Hitchcock' had real potential to be great, being a biopic on one of the greatest and most influential directors ever and with such a great cast. It could have been much better and is an uneven film, but is a better Hitchcock biopic than 'The Girl' from the same period.It looks great for starters. The cinematography is sumptuous and colourful, and the costume, set and production design and scenery are both eye-catching and evocative. Danny Elfman's score has a lot of atmosphere but also a liveliness and whimsy, even including a chilling and very well used nod to the iconic score from 'Psycho'.A very heavily up Anthony Hopkins makes a valiant effort as Hitch, and it is a spirited, gleefully relished and well-studied characterisation that is much more subtly written than how Hitch was written in 'The Girl' (though in that Toby Jones did do very well indeed with what he was given). Helen Mirren cuts an enigmatic and firm yet sympathetic presence as wife Alma. In support, coming off particularly well are Scarlett Johanssen's spot-on Janet Leigh and Toni Collette who is always good even in material beneath her. While under-used, the Anthony Perkins of James D'Arcy is also ideal casting.Coming off less well are Danny Huston's pretty irritating Whitfield Cook, Ralph Macchio's too old and jarringly too modern-looking Joseph Stefano (kept seeing the Karate Kid rather than Stefano, which really took me out of the film) and Jessica Biel who also feels miscast as Vera Miles, a case of recognisable name and star quality over whether they fit the character or period or both (neither of which Biel does).'Hitchcock's' storytelling is also uneven and unfocused, likewise with the direction which badly struggles with the balancing of plot strand and tone shifts. 'Hitchcock' fares well in the making of 'Pyscho' and Hitch's belligerent reaction to 'North By Northwest's' success, which is fascinating and there should have been much more of it, and in the strong and quite touching chemistry between Hopkins and Mirren.It however underwhelms badly in the very unconvincingly written and unlikely love triangle, which sees Alma falling for Whitfield Cook, a big problem when that has more screen time than the story elements 'Hitchcock' does well in. And also in the tonally odd, padded out (they were clearly there for padding too) and out of place scenes with Ed Gein which was an attempt to bring a fantasy element to the film, and a ghoulish one, but it was woefully misjudged (a shame because Michael Wincott is eerily good as Gein, so much so that if a film is made about Gein in the future Wincott should be up for serious consideration to play him).Some of the dialogue is clunky and not just underuses characters that would have made the film even more interesting (Perkins definitely should have been in the film longer) but the way Alma is written can be considered a character assassination, practically hero-worshipping her and while not vilifying Hitch necessarily there is the very strong and blatant implication that he was lazy, not as clever as he clearly was to make so many great films and that he would not have had the success he had without Alma. The way the characters are written are sketchy and one-dimensional, and despite so much promise one does question the film's point.All in all, intriguing enough but very uneven. 5/10 Bethany Cox

I clicked open this film because I admire Alfred Hitchcock's fame and his work, but this is far more tedious than I anticipated. Alfred Hitchcock is indisputably a genius, and we are eagerly curious about his personal life, but it gives me the impression that it's rather boring and bereaved of any adventure or romance. Even though the film strives to exaggerate his love towards his creative and independent wife Alma, that obscure and plain love affair cannot support the legendary atmosphere fox company grants his films.Although I feel obliged to comment on Scarlet Johansson and James Darcy's acting skills, I barely seen any of their charms because all young actors are shaded under the glory of great Alfred Hitchcock, who according to Anthony Hopkin's depiction, is a pervert and self- centered wrinkled ball that breathes like a old bellow with tons of coal crumbs stuffed in it. Although I admire Alfred Hitchcock's talent, it doesn't interest me whether he keeps his swimming pool or have his reservation in a luxurious truffle from somewhere in Europe . They are fist world problems, and I have seen old artists sleeping on the street with newspapers as their blankets and granite as beds.In the shower scene Hitchcock was under the delusion that Janet was Whitfield, the knucklehead that had an affair with his wife. And the scene gave audience the impression that he was going to stab Janet, which gave the shower scene in Psycho an authentic texture. But you know, most people would at least confront Alma before murderous thoughts emerge, and the stress depicted caused by the imaginary affair in the movie is beyond the reasonable level. Failure of this emotional twist makes the whole film sort of artificial.I must click acclaim for the ending. That promotion manual is exciting, and the audience's reaction is palatable, and the spotlight around the red carpet lights up the mood just right. But when Sir Anthony Hopkins is seemingly directing waves of screaming, I hope they can remove that waiter from the background. His presence is really awkward. And probably a revolving shot would be better, in a more open and larger field, because that major highlight scene makes Hitchcock seems like a self-absorbed weirdo