What really makes Notorious stand out among Hitchcock's other films is how deeply romantic it is as a film, as the love story between Devlin and Alicia is not simply the backdrop to the main story; it is the main story, and it is a hell of a journey to watch these two try to navigate the impossible circumstances they find themselves in.
US government agent T.R. Devlin (Cary Grant) enlists Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman), the American daughter of a convicted German war criminal, to work as a spy by getting in the good graces of Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains), a Nazi hiding out in Brazil. As Sebastian grows fonder of Alicia, she and Devlin find themselves falling for each other, creating an absolute mess of a situation that puts them both in danger. What really makes Notorious stand out among Hitchcock's other films is how deeply romantic it is as a film, as the love story between Devlin and Alicia is not simply the backdrop to the main story; it is the main story, and it is a hell of a journey to watch these two try to navigate the impossible circumstances they find themselves in.