HITCHCOCK

2012, Sacha Gervasi, 98 mins.

An engaging but fanciful account of a year in the life of the Hitchcocks

Based on Stephen Rebello’s book about the making of Psycho, Sacha Gervasi’s Hitchcock is most successful as a portrait of a marriage between two creative individuals, one of whom is renowned as a genius while the other is, mostly, content to stay in the background. Alma and Alfred Hitchcock were devoted to each other and the film plays around dangerously with fact in suggesting that there might have been rifts in the relationship, particularly as regards the possibility of Alma nearly having an affair because s she feels neglected. But Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren are delicious with Hopkins, as in Nixon, capturing Hitch’s essence rather than doing a straight impersonation. The stuff about making Psycho is fun, if not always particularly accurate, and the best scenes involve Hitch’s sly ability to dance nimbly round the studio and the censor..