[rating: 2/5]
Julian Jarrold’s “The Girl” premiered on HBO a week and a half ago, and played at the Savannah Film Festival on Wednesday.
The film sets out to tell the story of famed director Alfred Hitchcock, as he makes his classic film, “The Birds” and its follow-up “Marnie” — both starring Tippi Hedren.
Hitch, as he’s affectionately referred to by some (and fearsomely by others), plucks Hedren from absolute obscurity to star in his films — filling the role of the hapless blonde victim.
“The Girl” goes to great lengths to reference and pay homage to the films it deals with, and this presents the first problem for the movie. There are numerous shots that are indicative of Hitchcock’s “The Birds” – long and leering of someone or something observing Tippi Hedren. The issue here is that while paying a nice homage, these shots serve no other purpose within the context of this story.
When the story reaches the point of the production of “Marnie” Hitch begins to reflect Sean Connery’s character of that film, who rapes Hedren on their wedding night. Although Hitchcock doesn’t go that far, he still psychologically tortures Hedren. He orders her to make herself “sexually available” to him at all times, a form of repayment to him for creating her stardom.
From the very start, however, Hitch is portrayed as a manipulative and controlling man. He criticizes Hedren’s choice of jewelry in her everyday life, he makes her do endless takes of a scene in which real birds attack her, and even sends her sacks of potatoes when he thinks she’s losing weight.
While Alfred Hitchcock, like many filmmakers, was a bit of a control freak some of his actions within the film are questionable. What really piques concern is that the real Tippi Hedren was a consultant on this film. Hitch is essentially portrayed as a horrible person who constantly lusts after Hedren, despite being married, and is implied to be an alcoholic. Conversely, Tippi is depicted as a perfect mother, an innocent actress, and a woman everyone loves to be around. Ultimately, both Hitch and Hedren come off as very one-dimensional characters with no depth beyond their story arcs.
This is not to say the film is an absolute horror. Sienna Miller does a decent job in the film, considering that she’s ultimately portraying a woman who was never lauded as a great actress, and therefore, has to play it a bit boring.
Toby Jones, however, is the standout. He does a phenomenal job as Alfred Hitchcock – perfecting his walk, mannerisms, and voice. The production chose not to go the route of prosthetics for Jones’ portrayal (a choice that was used for Anthony Hopkins’ portrayal of the filmmaker in the upcoming “Hitchcock”). And while he doesn’t look exactly like the real Hitch, he does a fine job of giving a sense of realism to the man.
“The Girl” is a film that tried to do too much with too little. What could have been an interesting story of the director’s controlling ways, turned into a film that lauded Tippi Hedren as a saint and showed Alfred Hitchcock as a monster.
Despite a few redeeming qualities and performances, “The Girl” is ultimately one for the birds.
