Alfred Hitchcock (“Rear Window”) is one of cinema’s most influential filmmakers and has made some undeniable classics; I was saddened to see that biography picture focusing on him is such a disappointment.

The film focuses on the relationship between Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins “The Silence of the Lambs”, “Red Dragon”) and his wife Alma Reville (Helen Mirren “Calendar Girls”) during the making of Hitchcock’s most famous and controversial film “Psycho” but I felt we should have had more on the movie than on the awkward marriage problems. The film shows the real struggle as Hitchcock had trying to convince the studios and the censors about his movie.

Anthony Hopkins is a fantastic actor and we see him perfectly transformed into Alfred Hitchcock thanks to some amazing make-up. He gives a good performance. I really wasn’t keen on the Alma character as it hinted at her being a great filmmaker but we don’t get to see that side of her enough and the performance by Helen Mirren wasn’t impressive. I hated the character Ed Gein (the real-life murderer the book “Psycho” was based on), who Hitchcock has many dreams about. The other characters visually are quite convincing but they didn’t stick in my mind.

I hated the Ed Gein subplot, I disliked the quantity of the relationship stuff as I wanted more on the filmmaking and I really wanted to see new people playing Cary Grant, James Stewart among others. I liked the performance by Anthony Hopkins, the make-up for Alfred Hitchcock really is brilliant and I liked the little bit of trivia about Hitchcock being the one in the shower scene which I’m sure people who aren’t big film fans like me will find interesting. Like the “Chaplin” biography movie, it suffers from being too much about the person rather than being on his great skill. A tubby and perverted man bickering with his wife and being generally unhealthy isn’t what this tribute to his masterful work should be like.