Vertigo (Matt)

I have heard from a few people that Vertigo is by far the best movie that famous director Alfred Hitchcock ever made. I have to take that with a grain of salt sadly, because as of this very moment I have seen exactly one Alfred Hitchcock movie, that one movie being of course Vertigo for the purpose of this review. I haveve heard that he was an amazing director, so I was glad to be able to finally experience on of his movies.

I can state with confidence that the plot is one of the most twisting things I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing. I did not want to use this cliche, but this film is very much like a roller coaster. It starts slow, with a long buildup - this would be the clackety journey up the first and largest hill of the ride - and then, once the audience is filled with anticipation and curiosity, the bottom falls out. It is difficult to say much more than after the initial buildup, the plot twists and that it twists a lot, so you will have to settle for that. I was taken completely by surprise. I hesitated to mention this at all, so that you readers out there could experience the twists just as blindly as I did, but ultimately I am hoping that the knowledge of such a crazy plot will entice you to go watch this movie. The plot is absolutely wild, and it is absolutely brilliant.

The acting is also very well done. It took me about 30 minutes or so to grow accustomed to seeing James Stewart in such a serious role. My only experience with this actor is the very famous "It's A Wonderful Life", and because of that I had to break the actor out of the mold that I had fit him to. Once I got past that however, he did a great job. His very unique voice was a bit distracting but that too I was able to overlook with time. I think however, despite his performance, that the true star of this movie was Kim Novak. She played her role very well and sadly, due to the secrets of the twisting plot, I can't elaborate much more than that.

The movie was very firmly rooted in San Francisco, which was nice. The city was very well portrayed in the movie. We were treated to beautiful shots of the city, as well as some shots underneath the Golden Gate Bridge and inside a redwood forest. The city felt as ingrained in this movie as New York City does in the Ghostbusters films. If I ever make it to San Francisco it would be interesting to tour the city and try to find a few of the locations in this movie.

The music was not outstanding. In fact, thinking back on the movie, nowhere does the music particularly stand out. This means to me that it was neither exceptionally good nor was it exceptionally bad, rather it was just average.

This movie was a surprise for me. I was not expecting a barrage of plot twists from a movie made in 1958, which likely validates my earlier statement regarding never seeing a Hitchcock film before, and I was absolutely floored by them. The beginning was a little slow, but that was most likely necessary to set up the rest of the movie. I'll give this movie 8 scary nuns out of 10.

~Matt