The Girl (TV 2012)

The turbulent relationship between filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock and actress Tippi Hedren.

Director:

Julian Jarrold

Writers:

Gwyneth Hughes, Donald Spoto (book)

Stars:

Sienna Miller, Toby Jones, Imelda Staunton

Nominated for 3 Golden Globes. Another 2 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Sienna Miller	...	Tippi Hedren
Toby Jones	...	Alfred Hitchcock
Imelda Staunton	...	Alma Reville Hitchcock
Conrad Kemp	...	Evan Hunter
Penelope Wilton	...	Peggy Robertson
Angelina Ingpen	...	Melanie
Candice D'Arcy	...	Josephine Milton
Carl Beukes	...	Jim Brown
Kate Tilley	...	Rita Riggs
Aubrey Shelton	...	Maitre D
Leon Clingman	...	Ray Berwick
Patrick Lyster	...	Bob Boyle

Storyline

When Grace Kelly retires from films to marry Prince Rainier Alfred Hitchcock looks for a similar blonde and finds her in TV model,the little known Tippi Hedren,who will star in his film adaptation of horror story 'The Birds'. Hitchcock is obsessed with Tippi sexually and,when she rebuffs his advances,sadistically puts her through five days of filming where she is attacked and injured by real birds. Hitchcock's wife Alma and his assistant Peggy are appalled but can do nothing. Tippi is resolved that she will not give in to Hitchcock despite the situation giving her nightmares. Hitchcock and Tippi make a second film,'Marnie'. Having admitted that Alma is the only woman he has ever had sex with and that he now finds her cold Hitchcock continues to pursue Tippi, bombarding her with phone calls declaring his love for her yet reminding her that he alone made her famous and she owes him. At this stage Tippi demands that her contract be terminated and an end title states that they never ...

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Plot Keywords:

bird | actress | director | model | blonde | 

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Taglines:

He made her his star. And his darkest obsession.

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

TV-14

Details

Country:

UK South Africa USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

20 October 2012 (USA)

Also Known As:

Dziewczyna Hitchcocka

Company Credits

Production Co:

Wall to Wall Media, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Moonlighting Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The widow of James H. Brown, Hitchcock's assistant on both "The Birds" and "Marnie", has insisted that the depiction of her husband in this film is inaccurate and that the information her husband gave to the scriptwriter, Gwyneth Hughes, in an interview before he died in 2011, was either ignored or distorted. His remarks to Hughes on the subject of Alfred Hitchcock had been, in reality, entirely admiring and complimentary. Mrs. Brown has attacked "The Girl" savagely as an insult to a great artist.

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Goofs

Alfred Hitchcock is shown directing a scene for "The Birds" on location wearing a bowler hat whilst seated in his director's chair. Hitchcock was photographed wearing a bowler (for publicity purposes) whilst making "Frenzy" in autumnal London nearly a decade later, and wears one in his brief personal cameo in that film. In reality, however, he never wore headgear (and wearing a hat on a windy day whilst near the sea would surely have been foolish).

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Quotes

Alfred Hitchcock: There was a young girl from Sofia / Who succumbed to her lover's desire. / She said it's a sin, / But now that it's in / Could you shove it a few inches higher?

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Connections

References The Birds (1963)

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Soundtracks

"I've Told Ev'ry Little Star"
Written by Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern
Performed by Linda Scott
Courtesy of Epic Records

User Reviews

The Girl...a hatchet job

This movie is in the vein of Mommie Dearest, but without the high camp hilarity and cat fights in the sunken lounge. The entire lumbering disaster should have been called The Fractured Fairy tales of T. Hedren, and it's clear from the start she is a victim. Tippi Hedren is a victim of her beauty, kindness, generosity of spirit and of course her sheer naïveté. Of course, it's nonsense...but not even unintentionally funny nonsense. It takes itself so seriously (like Hedren herself) although for what reason, I have no idea. Toby Jones and Imelda Staunton are good, but they are the only bright lights in a movie that is so underacted and underwhelming that it's painful to watch. Staunton is reduced to a mere cliché but works hard to give her character and the memory of Alma Hitchcock some gravitas.

Now to Sienna Miller, who has all the acting skills of lumber and runs the gamut of emotions from A to B. She is closest dramatically to Hedren herself who seems to blame Hitchcock for her premature career death. What is Miller's excuse for her inexorable and agonizing inability to act? She cannot blame Hitchcock...so I wonder who she does blame. Granted, she has a slim script and so many close ups of her face which is intended for her to emote. However her face is so botoxed, she has no emotion and instead just looks weepy and slack-jawed. It's funny really....Sienna Miller has virtually no acting skills but at least she could be relied on to use her face to give some meaning to her roles. Take that away...and she is a moving speaking coat hanger for replica fashions and an overworked wardrobe department.

The script is clunky, slow and overwrought. The scenes of bad acting are strung together with no apparent connection or rationale and the long lingering camera shots of Sienna with her blank face and shabby accent make the film even less watchable. The final scene where Hitchcock asks Hedren to make herself "sexually available" to him is one of the most unintentionally crass and sloppy scenes in the film, and leads to the claim that Hedren has made repeatedly that it was Hitchcock who ruined her career.

After watching this clunker with Miller as Hedren, it's clear the reason Hedren failed was because she just couldn't act. There is a line, where according to Hedren, Hitch took a "..living breathing woman and turned her into a statue." Perhaps this is the most honest line in the entire film. Both Hedren and Miller have all the acting skills of a statue without the benefits of a statue's silence.