Hitchcock

Director: Sacha Gervasi, Main Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, Toni Collette, Danny Huston

A film about the making of a film and its creator(s): Psycho and Alfred Hitchcock. As the saying goes “behind every great man there is a great woman” and Hitchcock was no exception. Gervasi shows how his wife, Alma, has always played a cardinal role in creating his films. After three decades of  successfully working together, they embark  in their most ambitious project ever: adapting for the screen a novel about a serial killer with an unresolved Oedipus complex. Hitchcock is so committed that he decide to finance it himself when Paramount balks at the subject of the film. So he finds a suitable screenwriter and cast and begins shooting. When, tired of Alfred’s egocentrism and obsession with his leading ladies, Alma decides to ditch the production of Psycho and do her own thing, the master starts to unravel and the first cut of the film is a disaster. Well, we all know how it ends, since we saw Psycho. Needless to say Hopkins is quite up to the task in portraying this larger than life character (accent, mannerism, body language, etc) but the one who really carries the movie on her shoulder is Helen Mirren, absolutely brilliant as Alma. All the supporting cast does a great job but special kudos to Toni Collette.  —7.5/10