“You may call me Hitch, hold the cock.”
The H-Bomb: I should confess right off the cuff, I’m a sucker for movies about movie making. From 8 1/2, to Living in Oblivion, to Bowfinger, to one of my all time personal favorites, Ed Wood, I’ve always had a great interest in stories about the struggles of getting a film made. I also, like any true cinema aficionado, am an enormous admirer of the work of Alfred Hitchcock, in particular, his seminal 1960 masterpiece, Psycho. So naturally, when I caught wind that there was a film in the works on the making of Psycho, starring Anthony Hopkins as the master himself, my interest was piqued. It went right to the top of my must see list.
Then I began to hear the very mixed word of mouth about the film, with its detractors absolutely hating it, and my interest waned. Add to that the fact that it barely got a release, and failed to garner much notice during the awards season, and whatever hopes I had for this movie had pretty much eroded. They fucked it up. Somehow, they managed to fuck it up, although that no “No Talking, No Texting” PSA with Hopkins in his full Hitch get-up was pretty damn funny.
Anyhow, bearing the film’s buzz in mind, I, unenthusiastically, finally sat down to give Hitchcock a look, more or less to see how much of a train wreck it actually is, and as it happens, it’s not a train wreck at all. It’s certainly not as good as it could, or should, have been, and it’s easy to understand why many were underwhelmed by it, but it is far from being the absolute stink bomb that some have made it out to be.
Based on the book by Stephen Rebello, Hitchcock begins with the release of North by Northwest, which is met with mostly lukewarm reviews, and with people suggesting that Hitch, who is 60, has lost his touch. Determined to prove that he still possesses the power to shock and terrify, Hitch becomes obsessed with a novel that is loosely inspired by real-life mama’s boy-turned-killer, Ed Gein, and decides that will be his next project. That project is, of course, Psycho, and getting it made will be considerably more difficult than Hitch anticipates, as the bosses at Paramount see it as nothing more than a trashy horror flick, and refuse to back it.
Not one to be easily deterred, Hitch goes to his wife and number one collaborator, Alma Reville (Helen Mirren, in the film’s best performance), and talks her into mortgaging their home in order to fund the film himself. But money isn’t the only thing troubling Hitch, he also has to deal with the censor’s board (the head of which is played by a hilariously stuffy Kurtwood Smith) who make it clear that no nudity or graphic violence will fly with them. Needless to say, this master of suspense will have to be a bit creative when it comes to filming a certain scene set in a shower.
As if the hassles of bringing Psycho to the screen aren’t enough, Hitch also has to contend with his personal troubles with Alma. The burden of funding the film themselves has put a strain on the marriage, as they’ve grown distant from each other, and her once playful barbs towards him are now sounding more and more malicious. Worst of all is a new writing project Alma has started with writer Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston), with whom she is spending a great deal of time with at a secluded beach house, where Hitch suspects they’re up to a lot more than just writing.
When things become too much for Hitch to handle, he turns to the company and advice of his new imaginary friend… Ed Gein (Michael Wincott). Will our director, plagued by insecurity and self-doubt, be able to complete his film with his marriage, career, and sanity intact? Or will he go completely psycho? Unfortunately, we already know the answers to those questions.
And therein lies the rub; we know how Psycho is going to turn out, we know how everything will turn out… and that kinda, sorta kills whatever suspense, or uncertainty, that the film hopes to build. This issue is compounded by John J. McLaughlin’s script, and Sacha Gervasi’s stylish-but-breezy direction, which lack any kind of dramatic momentum. Sure, there’s behind-the-scenes shenanigans and scene recreations from Psycho to amuse film nerds, and we do get to see some of Hitch’s obsessive, perfectionist quirks emerge as he makes a movie, but dramatically speaking, there’s nothing here to really make us care.
The conflict between Hitch and his wife over whether or not she’s having an affair is obviously meant to be the film’s dramatic crux, but since the film makes the answer to that question clear early on, without a shadow of a doubt, it’s ineffective. Perhaps if the filmmakers handled it with a little more ambiguity, some actual tension could have been wrung from it, but alas, there is none. This is also the case when we see Hitchcock fretting over how Psycho will turn out, because, again, we all know how it turns out.
The overall lack of dramatic weight aside, my other major issue is with the performances. Not that they were bad, per se, it’s simply that, for me, most of the actors never became the people they were supposed to be. When I looked at Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh, I didn’t see Janet Leigh, I saw Scarlett Johansson made up to look like her. And when I looked at Anthony Hopkins, I didn’t see Alfred Hitchcock, I merely saw Anthony Hopkins in a fat suit and facial prosthesis. What’s worse is that his performance didn’t seem like a performance so much as merely a shallow impersonation. From an actor of Hopkins’ stature, I really expected more.
Perhaps I’m not being fair, as I’m so used to watching the real people that I just can’t accept these impersonators. No matter, this is still a very flawed film. That’s not to say, though, that it’s a bad one, as it is light as a feather and goes down pretty easy. As a movie buff, I was fairly entertained by all the cutesy little references and in-jokes contained in the film. But that’s the problem, it’s a movie for movie buffs, and movie buffs only. It’s full of winks, nods, homages, and little more. There’s no compelling drama to speak of, nor is there even any real insight into Alfred Hitchcock, the man, the myth, or the legend. Because of that, Hitchcock, as a whole, comes off as flat, superficial, and inconsequential.
