Following the love of Alfred Hitchcock, a well-known and successful producer, who has great works, who after the rumors of his retirement, unites up with his wife Alma Reville, a successful producer, in order to film, Psycho, a horror movie based on a horror novel and meets with success.
Without Helen Mirren, James D'Arcy and a few interesting scenes, this flat, lifeless exploration of Alfred Hitchcock's making of "Psycho" lacks depth or a suitable anchor.
The portrayal of Hitchcock is the obvious centerpiece, and while Anthony Hopkin's temperament is not quite lugubrious or phlegmatic enough, we eventually see past it.
Wallows in fat jokes and wink-wink nudge-nudge references that anybody with even a passing knowledge of cinema history will find eye-rollingly obvious.
Christian Science Monitor
November 30, 2012
Hopkins has been fitted out prosthetically to resemble Hitchcock and he does a reasonably good job of impersonating him, but it's a foredoomed effort.
It's tough work giving good face to an iconic role, yet Johansson manages to show Leigh as a thoughtful professional aware of the interpersonal booby-traps set by her director for his leading ladies.
Quickflix
November 25, 2013
There are a multitude of sordidly fascinating directions a biopic on Alfred Hitchcock could take. So, when Sacha Gervasi's flat and frothy Hitchcock concludes, it's inevitably frustrating to find this film takes such a conventional path.
The pleasure of Hitchcock comes in large part from the sparring between Mirren and Hopkins. As you'd expect, they're a class act, delivering the old married couple routine with conviction and plenty of humour.
