Rating:
by Derek Smith 1/25/09

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The Wrong Man is in many ways a modest film. It is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most deliberately paced films and its spare black-and-white cinematography and ascetic vision make it also one of his bleakest. Based on the real-life story of Manny Balestrero, Hitchcock uses the tabula rasa that is Henry Fonda’s face to project every feeling of guilt, frustration, terror, sadness and anger directly onto the viewer. The deliberateness of Fonda’s movement coupled with his almost complete lack of emoting allows Manny to function as a surrogate for the audience, our own fears of implication being toyed with by Hitchcock’s constant tightening of the screws. It is a performance notable for its lack performing, like a Bressonian model allowing the external factors to channel through him, yet not to the degree that Manny loses a sense of determination and vigor towards life.

Like Psycho’s sudden transference of identification with Marion to Norman (ironically Vera Miles appears in both films), The Wrong Man shifts the weight of guilt from one character to another - Manny to his wife. This psychic split occurs as certain innocence is beaten down by equally assured false accusations. Her sudden psychosis is an embodiment of the damage caused by the wrongful accusation – an inability to cope with the sense that social institutions they’ve been raised to believe exist solely for their protection have now turned against them, acting in collusion to take her husband down.  Adding to the frightening nature of Manny’s suffering is the care Hitchcock takes in detailing the dehumanized, institutionalized nature of his misidentification and the ways the pursuit of absolute truth on all sides is transformed into a pursuit of a guilty verdict. The first trial sequence is brilliant for how it captures Manny’s subjectivity, providing glances into mind as he looks around the courtroom to find disinterested jurors, lawyers and members in the audience as he sees his life slipping away from him.

Hitchcock uses a wonderful combination of claustrophobic framing, leaving Manny cluttered between men, handcuffed to a police officer or trapped behind bars, and minimal set designs to make the tension palpable by leaving little on-screen aside from Manny and his ever-increasing accusers. The films pacing too is remarkable, playing like a reverie, lingering on every last note – a technique that not only builds the tension to an almost unbearable level, but also to allow every tinge of emotion to register. The great tragedy of the film is not so much the failure of the police and court system to protect the innocent (the true thief was caught by a store owner) as Rose’s breakdown and the couples issues that came as a result. Although the text scroll at the end softens the blow and undercuts its effectiveness, there are few moments as powerful in Hitchcock’s cinema as when, in response to Manny telling her everything’s okay and they can go home now, Rose lifelessly responds, “That’s okay for you. You can go now.” It’s chilling, heart-wrenching moment that sticks with you far longer than the subsequent revelation.