Director: Sacha Gervasi
Year Released: 2012
Rating: 1.5
Following the success of North by Northwest, the great British-American filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) decides to follow it up with Psycho, loosely based on the life of the infamous loon Ed Gein - this biopic shows Hitch planning, funding, shooting and marketing that particular movie (his most financially successful). Despite having a wonderful cast at his disposal (including Helen Mirren as his wife and collaborator Alma and James D'Arcy as a dead-ringer for Anthony Perkins), this is not only factually dubious (the shower scene was actually shot in a lengthy period of time with the assistance of Saul Bass, for one thing) but also dramatically flat, using a supposed tryst between Alma and Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston) to supposedly "torment" the Master of Suspense (though based on anything I've ever read, Alma and Alfred were all-too faithful to each other). Having Hitch endure weird fantasies about Ed Gein (Michael Wincott) also seems bizarre and out-of-place; the sly - and very dry - wit Hitch possessed (if you read the interviews with Truffaut, for example) is missing from this on-screen portrayal. Still, it's nice that the movie credits Alma with being a major driving force behind the man: her name rarely pops up in the credits of his movies, but she was always there, acting as his core adviser.
