Sascha Gervasi’s Hitchcock,
written by John J. McLaughlin, is a thoroughly entertaining, but ultimately
uneven film about the Master of Suspense’s professional struggles to finance,
make, and promote Psycho, and his
personal problems with his long suffering wife, Alma Reville. The best thing
the film does is treat its title character not as a legend, but as a person. Half
behind the scenes look at the inner workings of Hollywood during its last
decade of innocence and half family drama, the movie’s different segments,
however, vary greatly in quality and tone.
Opening on a quiet prologue taking place in 1940s rural
Wisconsin, the casual tone is firmly set when the peaceful tableau turns into a
gruesome family murder, and the camera pans to reveal the title character’s
portly presence, calmly sipping a cup of tea while directly addressing the
audience, as he did in his famous “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” show. Brother has
been killing brother since Cain and Abel, Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) croons is
his incomparable British drawl; who is he to deprive us of the pleasure of
watching it happen on the silver screen?
