I find it constructive to compare this movie with last year's My Week With Marilyn: both films focus on a well known Hollywood figure, each engaged on a specific project, and the struggles that their creative temperaments cause in the realization of those projects. In both films we are conscious, to greater and lesser degrees, that we are watching actors portraying these iconic figures (in the earlier film, Marilyn Monroe and Lawrence Olivier, in this Hitchcock, Janet Leigh, and Anthony Perkins), and in each we have moments of the actors' slips showing, as it were; moments where we feel "Ah ha, there's Kenneth Branagh!" or "Yep, Scarlett Johnasson." The difference for me is that this feels much more spacious, much more like a movie that might have been made had we never heard of Alfred Hitchcock. The previous movie felt airless by comparison. I feel a lot of factors contributed to this: the inclusion of the Ed Gein backstory, and its effect on Hitchcock's subconscious, the lush cinematography, and Danny Elfman's score all played roles in making this picture breathe.
Review of Hitchcock
