In 1 9 5 9, director Alfred Hitchcock is enjoying the success of "North by Northwest", but feels somehow "too safe", unsatisfied due to his lack of challenge. He thus decides that his next project will be the shocking horror-thriller "Psycho", and intends it to be without compromise. However, his wife and screenwriter Alma Reville feels she is always just in his shadow, and thus goes off to write a script together with Whitfield Cook on a secluded hut near a beach. Hitchcock suspects she is cheating on him, but she assures him the opposite and ditches Cook. Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins are in the movie, but Hitchcock becomes sick due to stress, yet recovers soon. Paramount gives "Psycho" a limited release, but Hitchcock is able to attract huge interest of the audience, making it a huge success.
"Hitchcock" is a wonderful little film that shows a small glimpse inside the life of the famous "Master of Suspense", in this case being restricted to him directing the cult film "Psycho", and its biggest highlight is the excellent actor Anthony Hopkins who gives a delicious performance of the director, nailing his impeccable English accent and charming sense of shrill humor. The portrait is intimate and surprisingly emotional: Sacha Gervasi shows Hitchcock as a man who was obsessed with blonds, but knew he was ugly, overweight and bald, without a chance for such an ideal love encounter, and thus felt as if he was stuck with his "underwhelming" wife Alma, with this rift causing outbursts of dissatisfied psychological projections onto Janet Leigh and Vera Miles, whom he tried to control and subconsciously "cast under his spell". It is as if his own life was boring, so he yearned for excitement and adventure in his films. Alma even jokingly tells him outright she is not one of his "contract blonds". The film shows how making "Psycho" was not an easy piece of cake: Paramount executives were reluctant to finance the controversial film, but there is a scene worth gold when Hitchcock's agent confronts Barney, the studio executive: "Barney, it's very simple. This is Mr. Hitchcock's next film. Are you in, or are you out?" Another nuisance were the censors, who objected to showing a toilet in an American film, prompting Hitchcock to reply: "Maybe we should make the movie in France, with a bidet?" Hitchcock even made every cast and crew member make a public oath on set, that they will not reveal any secrets from the film before the premiere. The hallucinations of Hitchcock seeing the real life killer, Ed Gein, fare less, whereas the supporting characters are nowhere near as interesting as the title protagonist, yet the cineasts were grateful for this adaptation from the cinema history.
Grade:++
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