Review: Hitchcock

A biopic not so much of Sir Alfred Hitchcock in totality, but instead focusing on the inspiration for and making of his most infamous film, “Psycho”. Actually, that’s not entirely accurate either. The film mostly centres on the relationship between Hitchcock and the most important person in his life and career. Dame Helen Mirren plays his wife and collaborator Alma Reville, who is being wooed by screenwriter Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston), who worked on Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train”. Meanwhile, she’s worried that the randy old Master will try and make it with his two female stars Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson) and Vera Miles (Jessica Biel). The Master is also having a helluva time getting anyone interested in his disturbing film project, even Alma thinks it’s disgusting. Nonetheless, she is his biggest supporter and helps wherever she can. Toni Collette plays an office assistant named Peggy, Kurtwood Smith plays a humourless censorship board guy, James D’Arcy plays nervous leading man Anthony Perkins, Richard Portnow plays an unimpressed and impatient Paramount Studios head (even though the film was shot at Universal and merely distributed by Paramount, a bit of a cock-up by the filmmakers), and Michael Wincott plays serial murderer Ed Gein, the real-life inspiration for the character of Norman Bates.

 

This 2012 film from director Sacha Gervasi (the documentary “Anvil! The Story of Anvil”) and screenwriter John J. McLaughlin (“Man of the House”, with Tommy Lee Jones) manages to overcome three major cases of miscasting to eventually entertain, if not entirely satisfy. But boy, are those three miscasting big hurdles to overcome.

 

Chief among these casting issues is Sir Anthony Hopkins, proving that his Brando imitation masquerading as “Nixon” wasn’t a fluke. He’s much better here, but cast as famed British filmmaker Sir Alfred Hitchcock, he once again proves that playing real-life figures isn’t his thing. Some real-life figures don’t need a dead-on impersonation, but Hitchcock isn’t one of them and Hopkins is simply not good enough. He doesn’t look all that much like the director, but he sure as hell doesn’t sound even remotely like The Master. In fact, he does a pretty passable Michael Caine impersonation instead. He is right to make the voice sound a bit throaty, but it comes off like an insufferably nasal, young Michael Caine with a dry, sore throat instead. Worse still, he gets the inimitable Hitchcock slow cadence all wrong. That’s unforgiveable, every other Hitchcock imitator gets that one right at least. On the positive side, everything Hopkins does beneath the nose is pretty commendable. But even then, it’s all ‘performance’ and surface-level, no real acting as it were. One might argue that the real Hitchcock was too elusive for a 3D treatment, but no, Hopkins simply doesn’t do the character nor the film justice because the script paints an otherwise pretty 3D portrait of the man. It’s Hopkins’ performance that is superficial. I might’ve cast Brendan Gleeson in the role myself, but Hopkins just doesn’t cut it and during the scene where he narrates the driving scene in “Psycho” he flat-out sounds like Hannibal Lecter.

 

The other two problematic casting choices are the unquestionably miscast Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Biel as Janet Leigh and Vera Miles. Oh, boy, do I even need to explain the problem here? Well, neither of them look even remotely like the actresses they are playing. With Biel, she’s a little luckier in that less people would be familiar with Vera Miles than Janet Leigh, but she looks even less like Miles than Johansson does as Leigh (Does the director even know what Miles looks like?). And believe me, Scarlett Johansson looks like no one other than Scarlett Johansson. The actress doesn’t even appear to be trying to act (And I personally don’t think Johansson can act to be honest). She’d make for a passable Marilyn Monroe, but as Janet Leigh? Unacceptable. It’s a miscasting made worse by the hair and make-up department presumably taking a ‘sickie’. They do try with Biel, but she’s so hopelessly miscast to begin with that it’s too late. At least with Hopkins there was a little more resemblance there to begin with. I stress ‘a little’, and he botches it with a lazy performance.  The worst sin? Showing photos of the real Janet Leigh and Vera Miles. That was a really, really bad idea. It left me with the impression that this was a film made by people who hadn’t even seen “Psycho” let alone had any idea about the people who actually made it. Obviously that’s not true (I would hope not, given this film is principally concerned with the making of “Psycho”!), but these three actors were hopelessly cast nonetheless.

 

So are there any positives to the film? Yes, and enough to make the film worthwhile, actually. The film’s tone, for instance is spot-on. Opening with two idiot gravediggers, one of whom whacks the other, and following it up with the Danny Elfman (“Batman”, “Mars Attacks”) re-do of the jaunty “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” theme is simply perfection. The film has a pretty damn perfect dose of typically Hitchcockian black humour throughout. Hitchcock’s vision for “The Diary of Anne Frank”, for instance, is awful...and awfully funny. The man had a truly nasty and delicious sense of humour and his William Castle (but a high-end William Castle) sense of showmanship is well captured: ‘Try the sandwiches, they’re real fingers’ Hitch says at one point. It’s a great line but also a very believable one. Less believable is Hitch saying ‘But what if someone really good made a horror picture?’ To me that sounded like too-cute screenwriting than something organic to the man himself. Meanwhile, whatever my issues are with Hitchcock’s vocal performance and physical appearance, he certainly gets the posture right. The film also gets the rather randy side of Hitch correct, too. There’s an especially clever bit where Hitchcock spies on Vera Miles, ala Norman Bates in “Psycho”. Even more amusing is the way that his jealousy of wife Alma and Whitfield Cook is played out like an episode of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”, almost. It’s quite a playful and funny biopic, something tricky to achieve. It’s nearly worth seeing the film for Hitch’s summation of the John Gavin-Janet Leigh love scene in “Psycho” alone.

 

The film doesn’t overly delve into Hitch’s arguable misogyny or his infatuation (or obsession) with blondes (See the TV movie “The Girl” for more of that), but it’s interesting when those topics are dealt with. I do think the film could’ve emphasised how Hitchcock could be quite an intimidating presence, especially for his actors. But let’s face it, you’d more likely see that in a film about the making of “Marnie” or “The Birds”, wouldn’t you? (Once again, see “The Girl”) From what I can gather, Janet Leigh got on with Hitchcock pretty well.

 

One thing I was very happy about was that Gervasi and McLaughlin clearly want to champion Hitch’s wife Alma, and the film definitely gives the long-time wife (and frequent script supervisor her due. True, Helen Mirren looks more like famed costume designer Edith Head than the real-life Alma Reville, but unlike Hitchcock or Janet Leigh, only nerds like me know that, and Gervasi was smart to give Alma a pair of eyeglasses seemingly modelled on the pair daughter Patricia Hitchcock sported in Hitch’s best film, “Strangers on a Train”. That was clever, I thought. But the way the character is written and the way Mirren plays her, is pretty much spot-on for what I’ve always envisioned Alma to be. She was the dutiful wife, of course, but casting someone with real power like Mirren gives the character an extra layer of strength. Alma was no mere mousy doormat (though in fairness, she did look a bit mousy, unlike Mirren), and was quite clearly the most important person in Hitchcock’s life. She’s an interesting and sympathetic character and I for one thought Mirren was terrific here (Many seem to disagree, which makes me wonder if they’ve ever read anything about the real Alma). Aside from Mirren as Alma, the film has two other very effective pieces of casting, one more fleeting than the other. Former “Karate Kid” star Ralph Macchio, aged 50 (Just so you feel as old as I do right now) plays “Psycho” screenwriter Joseph Stefano, and although he only has the one scene, he looks quite a bit like a young Stefano and is very effective with his limited screen time. Even more impressive (and prominent) is James D’Arcy as neurotic Anthony Perkins, Norman Bates himself. In addition to looking quite a bit like the real Perkins, he sounds a lot like him and gets his mannerisms and nervous speech patterns down as close to perfection as anyone could likely get. The film isn’t overly interested in Perkins (outside of his closeted homosexuality possibly aiding his performance), but when he was on screen, I couldn’t take my eyes of D’Arcy. One could argue that he’s playing an exaggerated version of Perkins that seems modelled on his performance in “Psycho” but a) It’s a film about the making of “Psycho”, and b) I’ve seen Perkins in plenty of films and he’s always a bit like that. Whether that mirrors the real guy or not, I cannot say, but I think it would be churlish to complain. He definitely nails Perkins’ posture, though. I also rather liked the work of the always fine Danny Huston as writer Whitfield Cook. He doesn’t look all that much like the real Cook, but much as in the case of Mirren as Alma, he embodies Cook as I have imagined through reading about him over the years in Hitchcock biographies and such (Some have claimed that the film invents a potential affair between Alma and Cook, but I’ve heard the story before, so this film certainly didn’t invent it, true or not). And who better to play a cold, humourless Censorship board guy than Kurtwood Smith? Similarly, an almost unrecognisable Toni Collette is well-cast in a thankless role.

 

One controversial addition to the story is real-life murderer, necrophiliac and taxidermy enthusiast Ed Gein, who inspired the Norman Bates character in “Psycho” as well as films like “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “Deranged” and to an extent characters like Buffalo Bill in “Silence of the Lambs”. Played rather well in a thankless task by the always fine Michael Wincott, Gein proves to be a mere spectre here, rather than a (sorry) fleshed-out human being. Nonetheless, Wincott is good enough in the role to make me want to see him in an Ed Gein film. I must say, though, that the film paints an offensively sympathetic portrait of the infamous murderer and necrophiliac. He was a sick, sick bastard, but then...so was Norman, and “Psycho” invites the audience to see things from Norman’s perspective at times, maybe even wish he gets away with his crimes. I will say, though, that at least the film doesn’t suggest that Hitchcock and Gein actually met, so anything else is fair game really.

 

Three pretty major pieces of miscasting threaten to derail this biopic. Thankfully, it’s well-written and interesting enough, and the subject matter is already fascinating enough to pick up much of the slack. Still, this film has to be considered somewhat of a disappointment. The Master deserved much better than a lazy Anthony Hopkins. 

 

Rating: B-