“Hitchcock” has celebrated its world-premiere at yesterday’s opening of the AFI Film Festival. Director Sacha Gervasi and actor James D’Arcy – who plays Anthony Perkins playing Norman Bates – were on hand at the premiere, the rest of the cast was absent unfortunately. But that didn’t stop the critics from enjoying the film, especially the lead performances by Hopkins and Mirren. A collection can be found below.

The Los Angeles Times, Glenn Whipp
Hopkins fills the master’s shoes and jowls as capably as you’d expect […] but it was Mirren who earned the evening’s biggest ovation, drawing a huge round of applause after a speech in which the long-suffering Reville dresses down Hitchcock, detailing the ways she tirelessly and endlessly supported her husband through their marriage.

Hitflix, Gregory Ellwood
Among the supporting actors, Johansson is fine as the pro’s pro in Janet Leigh, but there isn’t much of an arc to her character. Sadly, Toni Collette also doesn’t have much to do as Hitchcock’s longtime assistant Peggy Robertson and that makes you wonder if much of her performance is on the cutting room floor. Ralph Macchio is memorable in one short scene as screenwriter Joe Stefano. Jessica Biel has one of the few legitimate arcs among the supporting cast as Vera Miles, a onetime protégé of Hitchcock’s who has decided to take her life in another direction. Industry audiences and cinephiles will find much of the inside jokes about moviemaking entertaining, but it’s the performances of Hopkins and Mirren which will drive “Hitchcock” to successful returns on the art house circuit.

Indiewire, Charlie Schmidlin
Based on Stephen Rebello’s book, “Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho,” the source material proves there’s indeed a compelling story to be told here, but while Gervasi’s comedy-drama presses charmingly on this period in Hitchcock’s career, the film ultimately collapses under its own lightweight intentions of tribute turned romance. And while there are many relationships and aspects of Hitchcock’s life that provoke cinephilic glee, like his mid-production bickering with Peggy and Saul Bass (Wallace Langham), or the fevered arguments with Paramount over budget, Gervasi continually employs the hindsight method of historical storytelling; namely, using the audience’s present knowledge to telegraph a knowing chuckle from a character’s clueless perspective.

The Wrap, Mickey Glazer
“I think they liked it,” Gervasi told TheWrap. “They seemed to laugh, they seemed to applaud.” The audience did both for the surprisingly funny film. The AFI audience gave two applause breaks during the screening: one following a pivotal Mirren monologue and the other during an appropriately “Hitchcock” scene at the end, where the real action is heard, imagined and enjoyed but not seen. In another full circle, the film’s epilogue (non-spoiler) mentions that Hitchcock never won an Oscar, but did win the AFI’s Lifetime Achievement award in 1979.”

Fox Searchlight Pictures has unleashed, via iTunes Movie Trailers, this first trailer for Sacha Gervasi’s upcoming biopic ‘Hitchcock.’ ‘Hitchcock’ chronicles the making of the seminal 1960 Alfred Hitchcock suspense horror ‘Psycho,’ with Anthony Hopkins portraying the legendary director. Don’t except too much of Toni though, there a couple of short bits of her at Hitchcock’s tea party scene, standing behind him during the “shower scene” filming and the premiere. The trailer is otherwise great and makes curious for more.

“Hitchcock” is based on the book ‘Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho’ by Stephen Rebello. Alongside Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren, the film also stars Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh, James D’Arcy as Anthony Perkins, Jessica Biel as Vera Miles, Michael Stuhlbarg as Lew Wasserman, Toni Collette as Hitchcock’s secretary Peggy, Michael Wincott as Ed Gein, Kurtwood Smith as Geoffrey Shurlock, Richard Portnow as Barney Balaban, and Danny Huston as Whitfield Cook. Fox Searchlight Pictures has announced a November 23rd US release date for Sacha Gervasi‘s film.

On November 1, 2012, the World Premiere of “Hitchcock” will open the AFI FEST 2012 at Grauman’s historic Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. The film stars Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock, Helen Mirren as his wife, Alma Reville, Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh, Jessica Biel as Vera Miles; and James D’Arcy as Anthony Perkins. The film is directed by Sacha Gervasi and also stars Toni Collette, Danny Huston, and Michael Stuhlbarg. From a screenplay by John J. McLaughlin, the film is based on the book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho by Stephen Rebello. “Hitchcock”, a love story about one of the most influential filmmakers of the last century, Alfred Hitchcock, and his wife and partner, Alma Reville, takes place during the making of the distinguished director’s seminal 1960 movie “Psycho”.