Woman of the Hour: The War Between Men and Women Propels Ace True-Crime Drama
By Liz Braun
Rating: A
Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them. There seems to be some argument about the origin of this statement — maybe Margaret Atwood, maybe not — but the sentiment is one most women recognize.
It’s the subject matter of Woman of the Hour, Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut.
Kendrick tells a riveting story here, ostensibly the real-life tale of 1970s serial killer Rodney Alcala.
But Kendrick and screenwriter Ian McDonald have bigger fish to fry than the true crime wrapping might suggest. Using time and space to create the illusion of a backward glance, Woman of The Hour offers a grim view of the way women move through the world — always wary — as they daily engage in the bracing game of whack-a-mole misogyny.
What’s changed for women since Alcala’s reign of terror 45 year ago, of course, is nothing.
Alcala’s story had an odd sidebar: he was a contestant on The Dating Game, a cheesy TV show of the era that had one woman choosing herself a date from among three bachelors, strangers she could question, but not see. It was kind of a 3D form of Tinder from the pre-internet world.
Alcala actually won at the game show, being chosen for a date by a woman named Cheryl Bradshaw. She is portrayed in the film (as “Sheryl”) by Kendrick.
Woman of The Hour opens in 1977 in Wyoming, where an apparently empathetic young man (Daniel Zovatto) is taking pictures of an attractive woman. She tells him a sad tale of abandonment and isolation; at the moment the photographer places his fingers too aggressively on her neck, it becomes obvious what will happen next.
The camera catches the moment when the woman’s eyes register the jump from nervous concern to fear-for-her-life; although most of the movie’s violence is off-camera, many scenes are truly harrowing to watch.
Woman of the Hour goes back and forth in time throughout, moving here and there to various other of Alcala’s murders. At the same time, another narrative thread introduces struggling actress Sheryl (Kendrick), who endures an insulting audition in her professional life and goes home, defeated, only to have her personal space invaded by a besotted neighbour (Pete Holmes).
Sheryl’s agent convinces her to do The Dating Game show, and although it’s against her better judgment, she goes along with it. Once on set, Sheryl is immediately put into a more revealing dress by wardrobe and is instructed to be smiley by the show host (Tony Hale). Then she begins to interact with the three bachelors; as the audience knows by now who and what Alcala is, the tension is heavy.
Halfway through The Dating Game, Sheryl decides to have a little fun and show her intellect, briefly forgetting the cardinal rule of being female: keep your head down. Bad idea. Her post-show encounter with Alcala is a masterpiece of suspense and terror, as are final scenes in the film that ratchet up the stress and fear on behalf of one of Alcala’s other victims.
The film has an epilogue that only makes it all worse.
The cast of Woman of the Hour includes Autumn Best and Nicolette Robinson; somehow every woman in the film becomes fully three-dimensional, no matter how brief her role.
Kendrick presents a perfect recreation of the time, a world with no internet or cell phones and a world in which gender lines are still carefully drawn. The Dating Game, like so much of film and TV of the era, objectified women; what should we make of the steep rise in true crime drama streaming now, everywhere, all the time? Discuss.
This is an auspicious directing debut for Kendrick. Woman of the Hour has a big impact and may prompt viewers to search out more information about the Rodney Alcala case. It will certainly inspire some viewers to thread their car keys through their knuckles on the walk back to the car afterward.
Maybe you should smile more!
Woman of the Hour. Directed by Anna Kendrick, written by Ian McDonald. Starring Anna Kendrick, Daniel Zovatto, Tony Hale, and Autumn Best. In theatres October 11.