There's No Hitch (Film Review" Hitchcock)

After I told a friend that I just saw "Hitchcock," he asked me if I would recommend seeing it, and I actually had to pause and think. I mentally divided its pros and cons. The good ? It has spirited performances. I wasn't initially sold on Anthony Hopkins but it didn't take a long time for me to warm up to him. He didn't seem like a duplicate of "Hitch," but he seemed to get the director's mannerisms and spirit. Helen Mirren gives a good Alma, the director's long-suffering wife, and I have read that a lot of what is shown here about her character is speculative, but Mirren is a fantastic actress so you a see a fully fleshed-out character. I am still clueless on Scarlett Johansson's appeal as an actress, and she still hasn't won me over here. I find it difficult to find more things I liked about the movie. Though it should be about how he made "Psycho," it isn't. What we get is mostly a tepid storyline about how he struggled to make the film, first by not getting financing from his company - he had to mortgage his house to finance it - and then later battling with the Board Of Censors to get his famous shower scene intact. There is an out-of-place storyline about Alma getting cozy with another writer, but that went neither here nor there. It kind of made me wonder the point of the movie. So, I answered my friend "no." It may be worth a stream off of Netflix when it arrives there, but I wouldn't go out of my way.