WOMAN OF THE HOUR – Review by Loren King
Anna Kendrick’s skillful direction turns this true crime drama into something more. Woman of the Hour is a smart, suspenseful thriller that also conveys how entrenched misogyny, at every social level from the police to an innocuous TV show, contributed to the murderous rampage by serial killer Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto) during the 1970s.
The film gives voice to the women who were Acala’s victims and to the few who survived and helped put him behind bars, most notably the terrific Autumn Best as a young runaway who shrewdly manages to escape Acala after he tries to kill her. But there are others who sound the alarm and are met with indifference, creating the film’s subtext about how disturbed and dangerous men are protected by the system because authorities (all men, in this era) don’t listen to women.
That’s borne out by Kendrick’s role as aspiring actress Cheryl Bradshaw who endures humiliating auditions and the unwanted advances of a seemingly nice guy neighbor. In 1978, Bradshaw agrees to her agent’s persistent advice that she’ll gain exposure by appearing on the TV show The Dating Game. By creepy coincidence, the fake-charming Acala is bachelor number three.
Kendrick deftly juggles timeline and tonal shifts to create a subversive crime thriller with expected scares and unexpected empathy and humanity. The second half of the film is a strange trip into the surreal but impeccably designed Dating Game set, with Tony Hale as the sexist and smarmy host (a Jim Lange stand in, presumably for legal reasons). Bradshaw manages, with advice from the jaded and clearly ignored women on the set, to push past sexist pre-written questions, grab the spotlight and shine.
Kendrick is superb in this sequence. The sharp contrast with the skin-crawling darkness that quickly follows is gripping as Bradshaw makes the mistake of having a drink with the ingratiating Acala. I’m not usually a fan of true crime or women-in-peril movies but Kendrick, in a stunning directional debut, has subverted the genre to deliver a nail-biter about a little-known crime spree and placed it in a context that makes it chillingly, memorably relevant for today.
