The Girl: Hamptons Film Festival Review

NEW YORK Once upon a time there was a sculptor who made a beautiful statue out of marble, says Toby Jones, persuasively sporting the jowls, the girth and the emotionless cadences of Alfred Hitchcock in the HBO movie, The Girl. He fell in love with his own creation, but the gods looked kindly on him and brought her to life. And they lived happily ever after.

That, at least, is the self-deluding way Hitch sees the scenario playing out in this absorbing but somewhat bloodless account of the legendary directors working relationship and spiraling obsession with his star and chosen plaything, Tippi Hedren (Sienna Miller), during filming of The Birds and Marnie.

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Premiering at the Hamptons Film Festival in advance of its HBO bow on Oct. 20, the film slips in ahead of Fox Searchlights Hitchcock, starring Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren, which revolves around production on Psycho. That one opens the AFI Festival in Los Angeles Nov. 1 before hitting theaters Nov. 23.

Scripted by Gwyneth Hughes from the most salacious section of Donald Spotos book Spellbound By Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies, The Girl is loaded with delicious treats for film buffs and Hitchcock fetishists.

Among them are recreations of the endless retakes that went into Hedrens ornithological ordeal in the attic scene of The Birds, as well as the dangerous surprise the director sprang on her in that films phone booth siege. Also revisited is the title character memorably sashaying along a railway platform clutching a bright yellow handbag stuffed with loot in the opening of Marnie, and somewhat more coyly given the reticence to show a Sean Connery stand-in the rape scene that shatters her purportedly frigid cool.

Of course, the ice blonde with the volcano underneath was the quintessential Hitchcock type, and this film, efficiently directed by Julian Jarrold, spends much time and effort exploring that attraction.

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Hedren is first spotted by Hitchs wife and most trusted advisor Alma (Imelda Staunton), beaming on a TV commercial. Called in to audition, she becomes an instant object of fascination and desire for the director. Hitchcock views the divorced models inexperience as an actress and her lack of marital or romantic impediments as assets. He dictates her makeup, hair, wardrobe and even her weight.

While January Jones is arguably the ultimate 21st century embodiment of the Hitchcock blonde, its conceivable that, were he still around today, Miller might be on his radar. The script doesnt quite build Hedron into a three-dimensional character, but Miller makes a suitably beguiling prey to Jones predator while still showing enough backbone not to fall completely victim to the puppet-masters power games. One of the most interesting scenes is an intimate drama-coaching session in which Hitch has her erase more and more of herself with each successive line reading until he arrives at the right glacial remoteness.

Sauntering along to Philip Millers slinky cocktail-jazz score, the early action in particular suffers from the same shortcomings as last years Hollywood history excursion, My Week With Marilyn. There are juicy details and compelling central characters, but little texture around them. The attention to period recreation is too clean and fussy, and the necessity to namedrop famous players without actually portraying them becomes a drawback. Not only Connery but all of Hedrens co-stars in The Birds and Marnie are MIA, which leaves the production scenes feeling thin and inauthentic.

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Hughes and Jarrold try to counter that by beefing up the role of Hitchs assistant director Jim Brown (Carl Beukes). Despite considerable screen time he remains a non-character, not helped by South African actor Beukes wandering American accent. Stauntons shrewdly observant Alma and Penelope Wilton as Hitchcocks long-serving assistant and diplomatic go-between, Peggy Robertson, add some color. But their roles are too limited to elevate this two-character piece into a full-bodied drama.

Millers performance grows more compelling as Tippi becomes unnerved, traumatized and steadily repulsed by her directors mix of sadism and sexual overtures. However, the movie is misleadingly titled. It should be The Director, not The Girl.

Jones has the stance, the gait and the glassy-eyed stare of Hitchcock down pat, and as the story progresses, it becomes clear that he and not his blonde goddess is the one who is cold as marble. The actor explores Hitchcocks sexually repressed hangups with both mischief and pathos, whether hes reciting crude limericks or drunkenly confessing his impotence, male envy and self-loathing to Jim. Even when Hitch starts making explicit demands of Tippi, one suspects Alma might be right when she knowingly snipes, The day she ever drops her knickers, youll run a mile.

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Jones gives an astute and technically precise performance even if, given Hitchcocks droll self-awareness, he might have had more fun with it. Psychologically, the script sells him short. The sexual dynamic and the conflicted urges of worship and ownership are examined in prosaically literal and superficial ways.

The film borrows such Hitchcock trademarks as Saul Bass-style opening-credit graphics, voyeuristic camera angles, and Bernard Herrmann inflections in the score as the action turns darker. Whats lacking, however, are those defining qualities of Hitchcock classics suspense, intrigue and cruelly subversive humor. Anyone with even a smattering of film knowledge knows that Hedrens screen career as a leading lady began and ended with these two films, so theres never enough at stake as he tightens his grip and she squirms to get loose.

Both Jarrold and Hughes have skillfully manipulated tension and mystery in the past the director in his mesmerizing entry in the Red Riding telefilm trilogy; the screenwriter on the tightly plotted 2010 miniseries Five Days. So its disappointing that this is a diverting curio rather than a deep plunge into the cold waters of obsession.

For the record, celebrity trivia hounds will get a kick out of watching a junior Melanie Griffith (Angelina Ingpen) wake Mom from being pecked to death in a daydream after walking off the set of The Birds.

Venue: Hamptons Film Festival

Airdate: 9 p.m. Saturday Oct. 20 (HBO)

Production companies: Warner Bros. Entertainment GmbH, Moonlighting, HBO Films, Wall To Wall Media, in association with BBC

Cast: Toby Jones, Sienna Miller, Imelda Staunton, Carl Beukes, Penelope Wilton, Conrad Kemp, Candice DArcy

Director: Julian Jarrold

Screenwriter: Gwyneth Hughes, based on the book Spellbound By Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies, by Donald Spoto

Producer: Amanda Jenks

Executive producers: Leanne Klein, Lucy Richer

Director of photography: John Pardue

Production designer: Darryl Hammer

Music: Philip Miller

Costume designer: Diana Cilliers

Editor: Andrew Hulme

No rating, 90 minutes

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