‘That signals the end of our game. Well, Cheryl, it’s time to make a decision…’
Sometimes you see a film based on a true story that is so jaw-dropping that it’s impossible to understand how nobody has already made it before. Woman of the Hour is one such film. The directorial debut of Anna Kendrick, this is a shocking and deeply unsettling movie that manages to illicit strong emotions without relying on anything as crass as jump scares or grisly murder sequences. There are death scenes here, of course, but they are never gratuitous. They often only exist to draw attention to the many small details that make this case so disquieting…
Woman of the Hour follows aspiring actress Sheryl Bradshaw (Kendrick) as she attempts to use an appearance on the ubiquitous American TV show The Dating Game as a stepping stone to advance her acting career. Alongside this storyline, we flash back and forth in the life of serial killer Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto) as he uses his skills as a photographer as a way to entrap several girls and women.
While Zovatto is intense and menacing as the big bad, it is all the other microaggressions and slights that the women in this film have to endure that perhaps provide the film’s most distasteful moments. It’s there in the backhanded compliments about Sheryl’s appearance or the way she is often belittled for daring to have an opinion. It’s there in Pete Holmes’ needy neighbour and Tony Hale’s brooding and jealous game show host. Indeed, in this world, it is all men, and while some find this heavy-handed, it is the incompetence and misogyny of various police forces and institutions that allowed Alcala to get away with it for so long. In that respect, this case shares several details with the Yorkshire Ripper case and many others like it. It’s depressing how many women have been murdered due to basic incompetence.
Woman of the Hour is like Zodiac if that film focused more on the victims. This is a desperately tragic tale directed by Kendrick as if her life depended on it. While always an accomplished actor, she has announced herself as a director here and it’ll be fascinating to see what she takes on next. Whatever it is, I’ll be there.
