The movie lacks a solid story and an honest resolution.

Rating: 1/10 (20 February 2008)

Having never seen the movie, I read the script first to prepare myself for the 'visual companion', in other words, for the film. I am a huge fan of Daphne Du Maurier's "Rebecca", and although I have never read "The Birds" novel, I figured it would be an interesting story as well.
By the end of script page 161 I had not really learned anything worthwhile from any of the characters. Since the script called for "insert information here from Dr. X for a possible reason to why birds may violently attack", I decided to watch the movie in hopes that I might find a reasonable explanation and maybe have a better understanding of the characters. I also decided to watch the movie thinking maybe it was a story that needed to be 'seen' in order to capture the eeriness and essence of the birds' wrath. I must say, that was not the case.
Melanie (Tippi Hedren) is a spoiled rich girl that is used to being childish and foolish and uses her Daddy's newspaper to bid her ways. Mitch (Rod Taylor) is the sophisticated lawyer strangely attracted to Melanie's beauty despite her 'reckless' behavior. Lydia (Jessica Tandy) is Mitch's widowed mother who is (unsuccessfully) coping with the loss of her husband and clinging to her son tooth and nail. Annie (Suzanne Pleshette) is Mitch's ex-girlfriend who still remains friends with him but continues to love him. Add to this soap like melodrama the sudden attack of birds for no inexplicable reason and you have yourself a movie titled "The Birds".
The reason why it failed to even remotely interest me was not because it wasn't "scary enough" or because the "special effects weren't good enough" those are poor excuses  but because I could not see a personal growth from almost all of the characters. The romance between the two lead characters seemed abrupt, there is a scene in the script that actually displays them getting close and ultimately displaying their affections for one another, but in the movie it just seems rushed and out of nowhere. Annie's love for Mitch is not resolved in a tasteful manner  her character meets a terrible faith and she is simply taken out of the equation. Lydia is about the only person that comes to some sort of resolution and resignation in this inexplicable catastrophe of events. The brief 10 minutes of monologue she has on screen serve to explain the struggles she finds herself in as she attempts to overcome the fear she has been plagued with.
Still, the connection and emotional value just lack from my part and do not allow me to engage with a plausible contempt for the story.