Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
A retired San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.
Vertigo is a landmark of psychological cinema — its layered mystery, obsessive romanticism, and dream-logic narrative are genuinely exceptional. Hitchcock's direction and James Wong Howe-influenced VistaVision cinematography, including the iconic dolly-zoom, are visually stunning. Stewart and Novak deliver career-best performances full of ambiguity and suppressed anguish. The film's conception — a detective who falls in love with a ghost, then tries to resurrect her — is singular and deeply unsettling. The ending, however, while thematically resonant, is abrupt and somewhat cold, leaving some viewers feeling the emotional resolution is incomplete rather than powerfully earned. Novelty earns a 4 as the film remains one-of-a-kind in its execution of obsessive desire and identity deconstruction.