While working out some of the particulars for "The Birds", his larger and supposedly more frightening follow-up to "Psycho", at the breakfast table with his wife Alma (Imelda Staunton), Alfred Hitchcock (Toby Jones) glimpses a stunning blonde actress named Tippi Hedren (Sienna Miller) on television and immediately arranges to meet her. Soon she is offered the much coveted role and, after refusing his sexual advances, finds herself the victim of his continued cruelty which evolves into a sort of inexplicable masochism when she signs on again to star in "Marnie". Julian Jarrold's TV biopic "The Girl" features some great behind-the-scenes detail regarding the shooting of these latter Hitchcock films, and features a spot-on performance from Jones and an appropriately icy one from Miller. However, the film unnecessarily (and possibly unfairly) demythologizes the great Master of Suspense and, like its subjects, is frigid to its core, detailing a working relationship that demands more thought and introspection than is given in this tepid treatment.
