the wrong man | richard brody

Richard Brody:
"In some ways, the Hitchcock film for people who don’t like Hitchcock films.
The Kafkaesque nightmare of a man who has done nothing wrong, and yet who finds himself caught in a seemingly inextricable web of trouble.
For all of its meticulous practicality, the ultimate subject of the film is metaphysical. Fate, and even God, seem to have conspired against this man. He may be innocent of the crimes of which he is accused, but he's certainly guilty of something, and he becomes aware of it very quickly. Retracing his steps in the attempt to find an alibi forces him to look at his life with an exceptional care, and find all of his flaws exposed.
In the scene where he's taken to the station house and fingerprinted, the ink on his fingers looks to an innocent man like the presence of the mark of Cain."

 excerpted from Richard Brody's New Yorker piece on The Wrong Man (Alfred Hitchcock, 1956)