Originally planning to be released in 2013, but was then pushed back to November of 2012 for Oscar buzz, "Hitchcock" is a biographical drama about one of Hollywood's influential filmmakers, Alfred Hitchcock, and his experience in the making of his biggest success, "Psycho", while trying to fix his troubled marriage with Alma Reville, played by Helen Mirren. While the movie focuses on the "behind-the-scenes" of "Psycho" aspect, the film's main focus is actually a love story between two troubled people, whose marriage is falling apart due to the rags and riches of Hollywood. Although this quickly paced 98-minute feature is fun and entertaining, there is sadly not a lot that reaches the level at being perfect. But, to start on a positive note, director Sacha Gervasi delivers a lot of style to this material, and this making it a true story, makes the film a lot more fun and interesting. Although the makeup provided for Hopkins to transform into Hitchcock is great, but far from being accurate, the 75-year old actor disappears into the character, and is hardly recognizable. He got the right actions, motives, and looks provided to re-portray Hitchcock, although he still kept a broad tone throughout. But the performance that actually impressed me the most was Helen Mirren's take on Alma Reville. As always, she delivers all her professional acting traits to create this broken character, with tons of strong moments that make the film a lot more interesting. It's just a shame that Mirren wasn't recognized by the Academy for her underrated performance. The supporting cast features Toni Collette, Danny Huston, Jessica Biel, Michael Stuhlbarg, Ralph Macchio, and two-stand out performances from Scarlett Johansson and James D'Arcy who both respectively do a rather excellent job at recreating the two main stars of "Psycho", Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. But besides a talented cast, and an interesting premise, this film's delivery in telling the story is somewhat weak. The film just meanders from one scene to the next with little motivation to move the plot along. It's definitely noticeable in some scenes, when most of them feel a little forced and carries less purpose to the story. We even start to wonder if those scenes were even necessary to add in. Although the supporting cast has intriguing performances, they are sadly given little to say or do for the entire movie, with little character development with no reason why we should care about them. But the film saves itself with it's fascinating plot, decent visual style, and great performances from a talented cast. But there's really nothing remarkable in store here. But this is still a fun film if you want to know more about the comeback of the Master of Suspense. "Hitchcock", in my review, "fascinatingly entertaining, but nothing incredible".
Review of Hitchcock
