For the most part Sacha Gervasi‘s Hitchcock, which opened the 2012 AFI Fest tonight, exudes a dry, whimsical tone that echoes Alfred Hitchcock‘s droll TV-host personality. And a feeling of scrupulous composition. But this is not about the making of Psycho as much as a love story about Hitch (Anthony Hopkins) and his wife and creative partner of 40 years, Alma Reville (Helen Mirren) and a crisis of fidelity that arose, the film says, during filming. The Hitchcock team decided, in short, to go for emotion, obsession and the facing of demons.

Hitchcock director Sacha Gervasi during Roosevelt Hotel after-party.

I respect and admire the decision to not make this a nuts-and-bolts “how it was made” film — it’s ballsy and depthy. And talky and often indoorsy and shadowy and MCU-ish. Which also fits the pre-Kennedy period and the climate and the older-marrieds-going-through-a-rough-patch narrative. It’s all of a piece.

Except it’s 1:30 am and I just feel too whipped to write a review, but I’ll expand tomorrow morning. In the meantime here are some post-screening tweets.