Alfred Hitchcock was a rightly admired director and the master of suspense.His filmography also shows that he had several actors that regularly appeared in his movies such as Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, James Stewart etc.The Girl is a television movie that depicts a harrowing working relationship between Alfred Hitchcock (Toby Jones) and Tippi Hedren (Sienna Miller) while making the films The Bird and Marnie.The problem is what is presented as the truth is really a fictional account with the spin that Tippi Hedren is still alive to embellish actual events.Here we have Hitchcock falling for the nubile, young starlet and making her life hell on the film set especially after he feels rejected by her. Hedren later complained that Hitchcock ruined her promising film career.Toby Jones to me does not quiet cut it as Hitchcock in his look and voice. It is as interpretation he is giving and that is of a man who is obsessed, slightly perverted and deranged.I was more impressed by Sienna Miller as Hedren who plays the role as the classic blonde that Hitchcock liked to have in his films.The film leaves a sour taste behind with what is a character assassination of a respected but difficult director three decades after he died.

2012 was a good year for us, fans of Alfred Hitchcock. Two movies were released centered around the character of the genial and obsessive master of suspense. I liked 'Hitchcock' starring Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren which I saw, a while ago, close to its release date. I had somehow lesser expectations from 'The Girl' which bears the anti-promotional label of 'TV Film' - luckily I can say that despite the very different approach and the controversial approach in describing the character and personal life of the great director, it also is a very good film, and there are many more good reasons to put it near the most respected and starred companion, besides the year of the release.'Based on a true story' can also be sometimes a deterrent but it is not here either. The reason is that the 'true story' is about the relationship between director Hitchcock and Tippie Hedren, the feminine star of two of his movies - the famous 'The Birds' and the lesser known 'Marnie' that followed. Screen text at the start of the movie makes a case for the authenticity of what follows and to some extent prepares us for a version of the Hitchcock character which was rumored during his life, documented in memoirs and testimonies after his death, but never caught as such on screen until now. A Hitchcock who was not only obsessive in his film making, but also in the relations with the actresses he worked with, a film director of unequaled talent but also an aging man who tried to overcome the inevitable by trying to use the fascination he won with his art and personality in order to bring to bed the much younger stars he worked with, and when one of them like Tippie Hedren rejected him. he was sliding into what we bluntly call today harassment.The approach taken by the script and by director Julian Jarold was rejected by many of the admirers of Hitchcock. I do not have an opinion one way or another, but I will observe that some of the great admired artists of our time had their own problems that reflected in their personalities and relations with the teams or women in their lives - to mention Woody Allen, Polansky or Depardieu as a few other illustrious examples. The personal lives after all make good material for biographical movies (like the one we are discussing here) but hardly can shade their cinematographic work. I actually believe that Jarold tried to stick to facts, without necessarily making a moral judgment. According to his own criteria the viewer can consider the 'Hitch' in this film as being a harassing maniac, or an aging man falling to an autumnal crisis in his life. What cannot be denied is that one way or another 'The Birds' remains like a peak movie in the creation of Hitchcock and history of cinema.Some fine actors work make this movie even more interesting. Toby Jones creates a very credible Hitchcock with the silhouette and voice of the character we know and love, and enough ambiguity to serve the purposes and ideas of the director. Imelda Staunton almost made me forget Helen Mirren with her rendition of Imelda Hitchcock. Last and best, Sienna Miller has all the beauty and inner strength that makes us believe that there was such a girl who stood up to the advances of the great Alfred Hitchcock.

Wow! Is that really what happened? In many biographies about Alfred Hitchcock, the most Tippi Hedren ever said about the incident when Alfred Hitchcock supposedly propositioned her was, "Demands were made of me that I could not acquiesce to." But in "The Girl", Toby Jones' Hitchcock puts it right out there when he says to Sienna Miller's Tippi Hedren, "From now on, I want you to make yourself sexually available to me at all times. Whatever I want you to do, whenever I want you to do it." Possibly it happened that way, Tippi Hedren seems to have been consulted by the filmmakers. My feeling is that where there was that much smoke there had to be fire, but just how fair is "The Girl"?The movie is nothing less than interesting. Toby Jones is amazing, and Sienna Miller more than holds her own, but opinion over the film is divided. On one side are those outraged that Hitchcock's reputation has been besmirched without a chance to defend himself, while on the other are those outraged at what Hitchcock appears to have done to Tippi Hedren."The Girl" relates how Alfred Hitchcock groomed the inexperienced Hedren to star in "The Birds" and "Marnie". During the process, Hitchcock changed from mentor to monster becoming totally obsessed with her. Eventually he made an overt sexual advance. She refused and that was the end of the relationship.One scene in "The Girl" does undermine it. It's the somewhat salacious screen test where Hitchcock asks Hedren to give Martin Balsam a long lingering kiss. Unfortunately for the makers of "The Girl", the actual test clip is fairly well known from documentaries and YouTube, and is a lot less threatening than the recreation. In reality, Balsam and Hedren actually seem quite comfortable with each other. It was silly to overdo a scene that is so accessible; it leaves you wondering how much over-egging went on with the rest of the custard.The difference between Hedren and Hitchcock's other leading ladies was that they were better able to handle him. Most were established stars, surrounded by husbands, boyfriends and agents, but Hedren didn't have all that; she was just starting out and was far more vulnerable.According to some sources, it was about this time that Hitchcock's judgement also seemed to be slipping. The suppressed voyeuristic tendencies and fantasies that helped inform his great films were taking on a harder edge. He now wanted to be explicit in what he showed.Up until then, the Motion Picture Production Code kept him in check. Would films like "Rear Window", "Vertigo" or even "Psycho" be the enduring classics they are today if Hitchcock had been allowed to go all the way? The censor made him innovative and subtle. However, by the late 60's the Code was gone. No one ever ranks 1972's "Frenzy" among his greatest movies; plenty of rape and nudity on display there. Fortunately he never made "Kaleidoscope"; with what he had planned, it could have been a real legend killer.As far as "The Girl" is concerned, maybe it's best to just enjoy the show. Toby Jones' Hitchcock is even better than his Truman Capote, genius really, the voice is perfect, and Sienna Miller is so beautiful that you can believe that a fat, old auteur could harbour a fantasy or two about her. But maybe the last words on the subject could be the classic line Hitchcock once directed at an actor who was getting a bit too worked up about things, "Don't worry, it's only a movie".

Despite wonderful performances by Toby Jones and Sienna Miller, "The Girl," purporting to be the story of Hitchcock's obsession with Tippi Hedren, was tough going.I'm getting a little tired of reading on the message board that Tippi Hedren "needed the money." I guess I'm unclear as to how she's cashed in on this story. Did she write the book? The screenplay? She gets a "thanks" in the credits. I have a thanks on a film's credit and I didn't get a cent. If she acted as a consultant, I doubt for a TV movie it would help her wildlife preserve much.Hitchcock fans know several things: filming "The Birds" was a miserable experience for Hedren; Alfred Hitchcock was a brilliant, complicated man who probably had some sexual hangups; and Alfred Hitchcock had fallen for other leading ladies. However, those leading ladies remained friends with him (Bergman and Kelly) so one wonders if the way he is depicted in this film is correct. If someone tried to ram his tongue down my throat or recited dirty limericks to me or asked me to touch him, I'd have gone running.The screenplay was criticized by one of the people who worked on the film and was interviewed, so you already know it's sensationalized.In this version, Hitchcock falls for Tippi Hedren and makes her life a living hell after she rejects him. I have no idea if this happened or not. Toby Jones has again proved his gifts as a mimic - his Hitchcock is perfection, just as his Capote was. Sienna Miller is beautiful and strangely resembles Janet Leigh in this film! She did a good job playing a vapid actress.The problem with the film is that it's skewed toward Hedren instead of telling a story in a balanced manner. The second problem is that even at 90 minutes it's too long with scene after scene of Tippi sighing over her bad treatment or someone commiserating with her over her bad treatment and scene after scene of Hitchcock staring at her and then plotting another way to torture her.I had the pleasure of transcribing interviews that Donald Spoto did on his important book on Alfred Hitchcock, The Dark Side of Genius. I can testify that he worked for years on this book and left no stone unturned. I remember one part of the book, where Hitchcock is through with Hedren as an actress, saying, "She did the unimaginable -- she mentioned my WEIGHT." They didn't get along, that's evident. Hitchcock here is presented as a sicko whack job. Were that the case, he wouldn't have had so many people -- so many women -- working with him over and over again, which they did.I suggest to people that if they want to know the whole story that they read Spoto's two books, Spellbound, about Hitchcock and his leading ladies, and The Dark Side of Genius. He is given to psychobabble but believe me, it's more interesting material than this. And if any of this is in his writing, you can believe it.We are to believe in this movie that Hitchcock was hurtful and insulting to everyone, that he tortured, threw himself at, and belittled Tippi Hedren to such an extent that she made a second film with him. Yeah, that's what I would have done.I'm guessing there might be a little more to this story that would possibly not present Ms. Hedren in the best light. I admire her very much for her work on her wildlife preserve, and in interviews, she always comes across as a lovely woman. That doesn't mean she is as shown in this film.Hitchcock had his demons. Somehow Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Ingrid Bergman, Teresa Wright, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, and Barbara Harris got through it. Granted, they didn't have birds attacking them. They did, however, admire the genius behind the films.