Since the Belcourt has been showing fucked-up love stories with its Romance Is Dead series, you know they had to throw in some Alfred Hitchcock joints. We go back to 1940 for this one, when the Englishman partnered with Gone With the Wind producer David O. Selznick for his first American thriller, based on Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel. Laurence Olivier is Maxim de Winter, an aristocratic widower/walking red flag who takes a young bride (Joan Fontaine) who’s constantly reminded she’ll never be better than his deceased wife. As always, Hitch plays the audience like a violin, laying out a tense, creepy first half that’ll have you thinking — to borrow a This Mortal Coil album title — it’ll end in tears. But the eventual twists and turns in the second half will have you rooting for Fontaine’s poor trophy wife. (Fontaine even gives a line that’ll elicit applause from the ladies.) Leave it to Hitchcock to make a visually stunning, entertainingly deranged movie about second-wife syndrome that won the Oscar for Best Picture. Visit belcourt.org for showtimes.
Feb. 13-14 & 17 at the Belcourt
2102 Belcourt Ave.
