Z/Web

As Hitchcock fan, I’d been wanting to see this film for a while. I knew it didn’t get the best reviews, but I wasn’t sure why. The cast of Toby Jones and Sienna Miller was top notch and the story of Hitch’s relationship with Tippi Hedren while filming The Birds sounded interesting.

Unfortunately, the film’s a disaster. To be fair, it is an interesting disaster, but it’s a terrible film.

The film postulates that Hitch was a monster. He was portrayed as such an evil snake I had a difficult time watching the movie (it took me several nights). He leers at Tippi, tells sexual jokes to make her uncomfortable, assaults her, tortures her in his movie, and threatens her to try and get her to sleep with him.

Now all that could be true. I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I’ve read books about him and seen his movies, but that doesn’t mean I know the real guy. He might have been a total jerk. But this film doesn’t give us any other picture of Hitch. We don’t even see any of his movie genius — he’s presented as a rich fat guy in a position of power who treats the women around him like crap. I’m sorry, but that’s just too narrow a definition, even if aspects of his behavior were true.

But there’s also a lot false about this portrayal. We know that Hitch had crushes on his leading ladies, and that filming The Birds was hell for Tipi, but I find it impossible to believe that Hitch could be so blatant. He was a subtle man. His sense of humor was so dry that many people wouldn’t get the joke. That’s a man who hides his true feelings and not someone who would crudely paw a woman. (If Hitch were to have an affair, it would be an affair of the mind and soul, not the body.)

I’d add that since Hitch worked with many of his leading women in multiple films, and none have come out and put forth claims that he acted this way, it’s highly unlikely he could have been so blatant. Perhaps he wanted to behave this way, but he didn’t actually do it.

What really disappointed me about this movie is that it had potential to be great. The idea of a genius director obsessed with his star is fascinating. There was room her for real psychological insight into a tortured personality. We could have learned more about Hitch and Tippi — instead we learn nothing about either. Tippi’s a pretty blond who is in over her head in dealing with a powerful figure like Hitch, while he’s just a monster. Alma — Hitch’s wife — is a near-silent figure lurking in the background watching, but there’s so little explanation there we have no idea what their relationship is all about.

So instead of learning why Hitch’s obsessions made his film’s great, all we got is a portrayal of a man who should have been put in jail for his treatment of women. Just disgusting.