Hitchcock

Hitchcock is an interesting movie. The premise is wonderful: take a brilliant filmmaker, make a biopic about how he made his most famous film, make it a period piece starring Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson and Anthony Hopkins and win an Oscar. This seems like a fool proof plan. Anthony Hopkins is simply superb starring as the amazing Alfred Hitchcock. His transformation into this character is brilliant and the imposing, intimidating feel of what Hitchcock must have be like comes across wonderfully. Nearly as good is Johansson, which surprised me as I don’t rate her as much of an actress, but more a lady with assets that made her famous, but in this she really does portray an actress of the 60’s starring in a high profile film well. But, (in my opinion) overshadowing the whole cast is the astounding Helen Mirren. The portrayal of a deep complex woman who stands by her man through thick and thin, whilst being every bit his equal in potential capability, make this film as good as it is. The comparison of who she is and what she does for the great and powerful Hithcock, and how he is only capable of being the man he is with her in his life is the true heart of the film.

This is good as the actual structure of the film is a bit all over the shop. The continual dreaming of a Norman Bates type character in the life of Hitchock as a driving force was an interesting idea that falls flat, and the pacing of the film is unfortunately non-existent so any type of character arc or story arc doesn’t really happen. But, with the excellent performances of the three main characters this is forgiven as you really can’t help but be mesmerised by such people as these and wonder that they truly existed only a few years ago, and were they really like this?

This film is worth a watch when you just want an interesting drama to enjoy. It does have one specific scene of Hitchcock directing the music of the famous shower scene outside a packed theatre while listening to the audience scream that struck a chord with me, but overall it felt like a possible Oscar cleanup of a movie that just fell flat.

SCORE: 6/10

IMDB Information for Hitchcock