There's almost certainly an interesting story to be told about how Alfred Hitchcock went about making Psycho, but this film isn’t it. Not that it’s all that bad a film: it's just that, even if your knowledge of Hitchcock himself is fairly thin, it's not hard to see that this is a film happy to mess around with the truth if it creates what it thinks is a better story.
For example, entertaining as it is to have Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) haunted by Ed Gein (the real-life serial killer who inspired the novel Psycho – and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre a decade or so later), these scenes never really seem convincing as an insight into Hitchcock’s actual state of mind.
What does work here are the more mundane moments: seemingly driven by a need to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to suspense, in 1960 Alfred Hitchcock (well known for his love of the macabre) chose Psycho to be his next film, then financed it himself when the studios didn’t want to be involved.
Unfortunately this real-life story isn’t enough for this film, which then layers in a fairly generic subplot about how Hitchcock grew jealous of the relationship between his wife and creative partner Alma (Helen Mirren) and screenwriter Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston) so it can make the now standard point that the real power behind the throne was the woman history had previously edited out.
Whether this is true or not (this film at least grants Hitchcock sole ability as a marketer; Alma directs when he’s sick and edits when he can’t make it work), it's a fairly consistent theme in recent Hollywood biopics and doesn't feel any fresher here.
But the scenes dealing directly with Psycho are fun, as is Hopkins’ performance in general, and this does at least manage to suggest that Hitchcock was an actual artist, driven to create by forces internal to him.
It's an entertaining, if forgettable, look at a director whose work outshines this film in just about every way.
2.5 out of 5
Hitchcock Australian release: 10th January, 2013 Official Site:Hitchcock Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Biel, Michael Stuhlbarg, Helen Mirren, Ralph Macchio, Toni Collette, James D'Arcy, Kurtwood Smith Director: Sacha Gervasi
