Hitch your wagon to a great joyride
Film is shining tribute to the master of suspense
Movies about the movies can be tediously self-indulgent. How can they not? They’re staring into the mirror and looking back at their glossy reflections, and feeling pretty sexy about what they see.
And unlike most of us, they have every right to feel entitled to their conceit because we all agree moviemaking is sexy. Even if it’s all smoke and mirrors, and the ugly troll of greed lurks backstage, we can find beauty in the well-executed moment.
It’s a flickering muse, and luckily for us, it creeps and spontaneously combusts through Hitchcock, Sacha Gervasi’s narrative feature about the undisputed “master of suspense.”
Opening in 1959 following the success of North by Northwest, we watch the Britishborn legend Alfred Hitchcock struggle to stay on top of the Hollywood heap. He needs a new challenge and a fresh edge now that TV has let him permeate the American psyche via the living room.
The only problem is, the studio wants him to make another North by Northwest, but he’s passionate about a novel based on serial murderer Ed Gein.
In brief, Psycho wasn’t the easiest movie to make and Gervasi takes us into Hitch’s creative kitchen at a particularly volatile moment because as we learn, the director put everything he had on the line to finish the story of Norman Bates and his unique hospitality.
Using Stephen Rebello’s detailed written history of the film as a bloody broth, Gervasi gets an enviable list of ingredients to throw in his pot.
Not only is there the actual “making of the movie” angle about the many challenges behind the iconic film — from casting heartthrob Anthony Perkins as a cross-dressing killer to erasing the leading lady after the opening act — we also explore lesser-known areas of Hitch’s life, such as his 54-year marriage to Alma Reville.
A talented film editor and screenwriter who met Hitch through the business, Reville brings a sense of human pragmatism to the whole undertaking, kicking her portly partner in the pants every time he gets morosely self-absorbed.
The relationship dynamic alone is pure gold, but with Anthony Hopkins as Hitch and Helen Mirren as Alma, Gervasi’s film is able to tap into a motherlode of dramatic material with a diamond bit.
Even beneath the layers of prosthetic silicone and foam rubber, Hopkins’s electric screen presence crackles as he brings a serrated comic edge to the master’s signature silhouette.
In many ways, it’s a rather tough role to play because so much of Hitch was fuelled by his own shtick. He appeared on camera, played with his public persona and carefully concealed his real feelings beneath a sedimentary crust of curmudgeonly self-loathing.
However, if there were any actor up to the challenge of humanizing a larger-thanlife figure, it’s Hopkins — the man who actually made us care about a face-chomping killer named Hannibal Lecter.
Hopkins has a curious way of showing — but not showing — vulnerability. It’s a level of performance that finally comes down to the eyes and making us believe he could burst into tears at any second.
There is an undefined pain inside the director’s heart that this movie pokes at without ever really expressing, which is probably for the best because it brings a level of psychological drama to an already colourful voyage.
We’re never quite sure just what Hitch’s problem is, or what he’s capable of doing moment to moment, and the doubt serves up some muchneeded menace that Gervasi seasons with pacing and wonderful deadpan humour.
By the time we get to the climactic shower scene featuring Janet Leigh screaming from various angles, Gervasi makes us believe the director might actually be capable of such butchery in real life.
Then, five seconds later, we sense stifled crocodile tears.
The childlike swings of emotion are often accompanied by binge drinking and pounding back tins of French pâté, polishing the idea that Hitch was a gigantic baby-man seeking elusive female perfection — or at least the perceived image of feminine flawlessness.
To tease out those Freudian tangles, Gervasi pulls out the bonbon tray of leading ladies, casting Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh and Jessica Biel as Vera Miles.
Like everyone else in front of the camera, you can feel a sense of joy and wonderment bubbling up behind the glossy art direction in their performances, with Johansson fully possessing the body language and elocution of a ’50s bombshell.
Even James D’Arcy’s turn as Tony Perkins feels eerily close to the real thing, and maybe that’s the central pleasure in this entertaining outing: We really feel like we’ve driven on to the Paramount lot while Psycho was shooting.
Gervasi knows it’s sexy, but like the man he’s rendering through mise en scène, he uses endless restraint, always knowing less is more and saving his cinematic punches for the most effective moment.
Mirren and Hopkins do the rest, picking up the bits and pieces of a peculiar marriage with a real sense of ownership, reminding us how seductive experience can be when it’s allowed to bleed freely.
A thoroughly entertaining joyride through a transformative chapter in pop culture, Hitchcock is a suitable tribute to the late, great director because it never takes itself too seriously — even when it’s gazing deep into the mirror of its own soul.