What kind of film does 'Hitchcock' think it is?

Hitchcock is one of those films which would have been much better off if it had taken a moment to sit down and decide on its own sensibility. Before a camera had even rolled, it should have pulled up a chair and asked itself: am I a film about Hitchcock’s marriage, or am I a film about his psyche, or am I a film about one of his films, or am I an inside-Hollywood comedy, starring Sir Anthony Hopkins lumbering about in a fat suit and perving at blondes? If it had asked itself, it might have settled on the one, and retained its focus, and told us something. But it didn’t, so it doesn’t, and it tells us nothing. It’s not awful. It’s just not much of anything; the kind of film you will walk away from with a ‘so what?’ and a shrug. ‘So what?’ I shrugged, as I walked away. See? Aren’t I always right? (Except when I’m wrong, but otherwise, aren’t I always right?)

Directed by Sacha Gervasi (who made the wonderful documentary Anvil, and seems odd casting for this, but there you have it) and partly based on the journalist Stephen Rebello’s book, this takes up Hitch’s life just as he’s finished North by Northwest and is about to embark on Psycho. Hopkins, as Hitchcock, is certainly the full prosthetic deal, with lugubrious chins, a jutting lower lip, and a belly so portly his trousers are almost a prototype onesie, they have to come up so high. Yet his performance is immense rather than immersive. Even though he goes all-out, it always feels like Sir Anthony under latex, going all out. How shall I put this…he’s not exactly one of those actors who can disappear into a role, is he?