Hitchcock [2012]

MPAA (PG-13)  Roger Ebert (3 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Roger Ebert's review

Hitchcock (directed by Sasha Gervasi, screenplay by John J. McLaughlin, based on the book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho [1990] by Stephen Rebello) definitely has its moments.

The beginning sequence where the character Alfred Hitchcock [IMDb] (played marvelously here by Anthony Hopkins) introduces himself to the audience is just great -- both shocking and funny -- exactly what one imagines the famous director to have been like.  And Hopkins does not let up, giving a great performance and probably one of the funniest/most enjoyable to watch (and probably to have played) of his entire career.

Similarly, Helen Mirren does an outstanding job playing Hitchcock's wife Alma who both had a life/career of her own and (as the viewer sees....) had to put-up with quite a bit of annoyances, some frankly a bit creepy (Parents take note ... I would have preferred honestly an "R" rating to "PG-13" for the film), being married to in her own words (with appropriate half-playful/half-serious inflection to be imagined here by the reader) "the great Alfred Hitchcock."

Even Scarlet Johansson gives a stellar performance as Janet Leigh [IMDb] who played the key role of Marion Crane the "wayward secretary" murdered by the "psycho" Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's famous film.  In Hitchcock's Psycho [1960], Marion Crane was simply a "striking" (and to Hitchcock and much of late-1950s Hollywood, "striking" meant "young, voluptuous and blonde") but "bad" woman who the script leads to a very, very _bad end_.  Yet Johansson's Janet Leigh reminds the viewer that Leigh (in contrast to Marion Crane) was far more than a "fattened calf led to slaughter." Leigh who played the "bad" Marion Crane who was murdered in the shower by Norman Bates was _actually_ a wife and mother concerned actually about how her role would look _not merely_ to "movie audiences" but to her family and especially to her kids.  It all kinda makes the famous shower/murder scene in Psycho feel a bit different.  Yet, Janet Leigh was _not merely_ a wife/mother.  She was _also_ a professional actress.  As I write this, I find myself actually _in awe_ of Scarlet Johanssen's performance, even if it was supporting to Mirren's and Hopkins'.

Yet, despite these three outstanding performances -- and one could add James D'Arcy's admittedly rather small role in this film (but again IMHO _flawlessly_ executed) of playing Anthony Perkins [IMDb] (who played Norman Bates in Hitchcock's Psycho) -- this film about Hitchcock making his famous film still feels strikingly _flat_.

How could it be that _so many_ individual performances in this film would be _so good_ and yet the final product be soooo ... mediocre?  Blame it on the direction, blame it on the editing or on the script.  But it's honestly a shame.  Both the idea for the film and the individual performances were just great.  Yet this would seem to be one film that just did not come together.  And that deserves one big sigh ...


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Lose to Win (orig. Nad Życie) [2012]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
Filmweb.pl listing*

Lose to Win (orig. Nad Życie) [IMDb] [FW.pl]*(2012) directed by Anna Plutecka-Mesjasz [IMDb][FW.pl]* written by Patrycja Nowak [IMDb] [FW.pl]* and Michał Zasowski [IMDb] [FW.pl]* is a truly remarkable/compelling _pro-Life_ biopic (subtitled) about the life and death in 2008 of Polish volleyball star Agata Mróz-Olszewska [PL-orig] [Eng-Trans] that played recently at the the 24th Polish Film Festival in America/Chicago (Nov 2-16, 2012).

Agata Mróz [PL-orig] [Eng-Trans] (played in the film by Olga Bołądź [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) had played on the Polish national women's volleyball team which won the European championships in 2003 and 2004.  She also played professionally (not shown in the film) in both Poland (from 2004-2006) and in Spain (2007) participating on championship teams in both countries.  In 2007, she was forced to quit volleyball due to illness (leukemia).  Shortly afterward, she married her sweetheart Jacek Olszewski (played in the film by Michał Żebrowski [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) back in Poland.  Six months later, while awaiting a donor match for a bone-marrow transplant, the couple announced that they were pregnant.  Here Agata decided to suspend treatment for her leukemia (including the search for a bone marrow transplant) while she sought to bring her child term.  The child, Liliana, was born healthy if prematurely 4 months later.  Immediately afterwards, Agata underwent the requisite chemotheraphy and died a few months later of an infection, despite being in prescribed isolation, while her immune system was recovering from the chemotherapy.

The question that Agata faced when she first found out that she was pregnant was, of course, whether or not to have an abortion.  She was gravely ill, most of the medical team treating her cancer counseled against her suspending treatment to try to bring the child to term.  (And even from the perspective of Catholic teaching, most moralists would take the position that she would have the right to pursue treatment for her cancer even if this would result in the death of the unborn child).

Postponing treatment did put her in significantly greater risk of dieing of leukemia before the child was born.  She died after having given birth to her (healthy if premature) child.  However, she didn't really die as a result of her pregnancy or of her postponing of her cancer treatment.  Instead, she died as a result of an infection that she would have been susceptible to _in any case_ as a result of cancer treatment.  That is, she could have aborted her child and then died of the cancer/infection caused by the treatment _anyway_.  Her legacy now is her child that she did bring to birth, and in their child, Jacek has some lasting remembrance of his/Agata's love.

Agata's case _does_ give us much to think about:  If one is staring at death anyway, why not take the chance of leaving something that would survive us after we're gone.  I do think that I understand why she made the brave choice (for the life of her child) that she did.


* At the time of the writing of this review, machine translation of the text on filmweb.pl links given above appears to work best using the Chrome browser rather than Firefox or MS Explorer.


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