Sacha Gervasi, writer of The Terminal and director of excellent rock documentary Anvil: The Story of Anvil, turns his sights on the life of the late great master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins). The film aims to pull the (shower) curtain back on his life and times making his notorious movie Psycho, including the relatively unexplored story of his wife Alma Reville (Helen Mirren) and how instrumental she was in his working process.
What should have been a shocking and fascinating insight into the working methods of one of the greatest directors to have ever lived is instead a rather stodgy affair that manages to be both a generic biopic and a surprisingly silly account of the way Hitchcock supposedly presented himself, in public and behind closed doors. It has an awkward mishmash of tones – ultra-serious one minute and light-hearted the next – which makes for an uneven film that doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. Playful and parody are two different things and the film never seems to understand the difference. It doesn’t really tells us anything new about the man that isn’t already known, less a case of in-depth insight and more dressing up what is essentially a fairly standard biopic in a flashy style with big names.
It does feature, however, two very impressive central performances. The make-up effects transforming Sir Anthony Hopkins into the titular man is quite astonishing; another case of lulling the audience into forgetfulness of who it is they’re really watching. But there’s more to the performance than prosthetics as Hopkins nails the mannerisms and physicality of Hitch. Mirren is equally as good, bringing real depth and compassion to a very difficult role, playing the rock of Hitchcock’s life who sorts out the dilemmas caused by his fastidious approach to his craft. The likes of Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh, James D’Arcy as Anthony Perkins and Jessica Biel as Vera Miles pepper the rest of the cast but it feels more like a case of playing dress-up than truly inhabiting the roles, their appearances almost signposted to wipe away any lick of subtlety there might be.
The real pleasures of the film come in the form of the nods to the actual Psycho itself such as its crucial score by Bernard Hermann, the deep issues the censors had with the graphicness that quite simply was unheard before Hitch decided to make it and, of course, that famous shower scene. It’s in these knowing, cheeky, wink-wink moments that the film provides the entertainment the rest of the pedestrian plot beats sorely lack. Narrative missteps are insidious to the film, chief among them a bizarre subplot involving Hitchcock imagining himself in the company of Ed Gein (the notorious serial killer inspiration for the story of Psycho) which only acts as a detrimental distraction from the other more important plot elements rather than the bonus insight it’s so clearly intended to be.
As a retelling of a specific point in cinematic history it feels hollow, as a biopic it’s terribly by-the-numbers and as an examination of the eponymous man it doesn’t ring true. It’s like the Wikipedia version of Hitchcock’s life, taking us by the hand from one event to the other without really getting under the skin of the drama. If this is anything to go by perhaps it would have been best to let Psycho continue to speak for itself.
[youtube id=”3rQuRLERl6A” width=”600″ height=”350″]