 Before the film 's US television debut , Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times was critical of the film 's objectives : " [ T ] he trouble with The Girl is that it tries to <unk> Hitchcock but fails by trying to know the man too much . It 's a movie about Hitchcock that ignores his best advice : ' Suspense is like a woman . The more left to the imagination , the more the excitement ' " . Richard Brody of The New Yorker also gave the film a negative review , writing that instead of a drama the film is an unoriginal work of criticism which " points to what everyone ought already to have been talking about in the first place : not least , that it 's no surprise to learn that a filmmaker whose art is devoted to pain , fear , control , and sexual obsession also experienced and inflicted them in life " . On the day of its UK premiere , James Rampton of The Independent wrote that The Girl was " no mere black @-@ and @-@ white hatchet job on Hitch . It does not seek to portray him as an unambiguous monster ; rather , it highlights the profound psychological damage that plagued the director throughout his life " . The Guardian 's Deborah Orr was generally positive about the film : " [ T ] here was only one thing wrong with The Girl . There was no Hitchcock in the director 's chair to make it the utterly compelling psychological drama that it could have been . " 
