 Historian Alex von Tunzelmann gave the film a mixed review in The Guardian : " The Girl is perhaps a more effective piece of film @-@ making than Hitchcock , though it is also more questionable in its portrayal of the director [ ... ] [ t ] he film depicts [ the attic scene ] accurately , though Jones 's Hitchcock appears to be more gratified by the spectacle than the real Hitch was " . Simon quotes Donald Spoto 's book The Dark Side of Genius ( 1983 ) , in which Hedren told Spoto " [ Hitchcock ] was terribly upset by all this " ; screenwriter Evan Hunter said , " [ h ] e wanted to shoot it , but something in him didn 't want to shoot it , and everybody could hear how nervous he was " . Nancy deWolf Smith of The Wall Street Journal wrote that the film should not be viewed in terms of truths or untruths , but instead as " an exquisitely lurid morality play in the Hitchcock style " , calling The Girl " an original masterpiece that pays tribute to Hitchcock 's talent and vision " . 
