Now Showing: Hitchcock **

Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson.
Director: Sacha Gervasi.
Rated: PG-13
Showing: Neptune Theatre. Fri-Sat 7.30pm, Sun 5.30pm, Mon-Thurs 7.30pm.
Runtime: 98 minutes
Biography, drama

Few directors put up as convincing a mask as Alfred Hitchcock or were as adept at using that public face to sell their work to the wider world. But what was the master of suspense really like in his private moments? Do we even want to know?

With Anthony Hopkins as the great helmsman and Helen Mirren as Alma Reville, his wife of more than 50 years, Hitchcock puts major league star power at the service of its peek-behind-closed-doors premise. But whatever that relationship was like in real life, this is one cinematic portrait of a marriage we could have lived without.

That’s not to say that Hitchcock is without its points of interest. Its pair of stars have their moments, the film buffs in the audience will enjoy having movie history circa 1959 come to life as Hitchcock simultaneously worries about his marriage and his chances of getting the groundbreaking chiller Psycho off the ground.

But, as directed by Sacha Gervasi from a script by John J. McLaughlin based on Steven Rebello’s book, Hitchcock is unable to overcome a pair of linked problems: its protagonists turn out to be not especially interesting and the audience is not presented any convincing reason to care about what happens in their lives.