Woman of the Hour
Anna Kendrick makes her directorial debut with a true-life crime thriller that is well-made but underwhelming.
Date with a killer: Tony Hale and Anna Kendrick
Image courtesy of Signature Entertainment.
The title is misleading to say the least. There are many women in Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut, and not all of them survive. This is actually the story of Rodney Alcala, an affable, well-read photographer who liked to kill women. He was convicted of seven murders, but there’s some speculation that he was behind as many as 130. According to the writer and criminologist Colin Wilson, there were as many as fifty serial killers running free in the US at any given time in the 1970s and 1980s, uncaught due to the ease with which they could slip across state lines. What marked Alcala out as unusual was that he appeared as a contestant on ABC TV’s The Dating Game in the midst of his killing spree – and won the date. The latter (the date) was Cheryl Bradshaw (Kendrick), an aspiring actress who was told by her agent that the show would be good exposure. And, ignoring the advice of the host to play “stupid,” she invented her own questions live on air and was something of a sensation.
Cutting back and forth across the 1970s, Ian McDonald’s script follows various storylines as Alcala poses as a photographer and Cheryl Bradshaw struggles to get a foot on the ladder at Hollywood auditions. When at one reading she makes known that she doesn’t do nude scenes, a prospective producer pacifies her by saying, “Oh, I’m sure they’re fine.” McDonald’s screenplay isn’t so much an indictment of serial murder as a crucifixion of men in general, with every male character either a condescending sleazeball or a prospective rapist. By comparison, Daniel Zovatto as Alcala comes off as almost sympathetic, which is probably why he was able to get so close to his female victims. Kendrick herself, as Bradshaw, seems shrill and insincere, like a character in a daytime soap.
The garish costumes and hairstyles fit the bill, although those wearing them never seem entirely real, except for Denalda Williams, the actress who plays Bradshaw’s make-up artist on the show and who steals the film by a bristle. Zach Kuperstein’s cinematography is also first-rate, as is the production design, while Tony Hale is suitably seedy as the game show host (modelled on Jim Lange).
Often on film, one encounters a true story that feels stranger than fiction, but here Woman of the Hour feels more like an incident puffed up into a lurid episode of a long-running true-crime TV series.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Anna Kendrick, Daniel Zovatto, Nicolette Robinson, Autumn Best, Pete Holmes, Kelley Jakle, Kathryn Gallagher, Tony Hale, Jedidiah Goodacre, Matt Visser, Denalda Williams.
Dir Anna Kendrick, Pro Roy Lee, Miri Yoon, J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules, Ex Pro Anna Kendrick, Screenplay Ian McDonald, Ph Zach Kuperstein, Pro Des Brent Thomas, Ed Andrew Canny, Music Dan Romer and Mike Tuccillo, Costumes Sekyiwa Wi-Afedzi and Brooke Wilcox, Sound Jussi Tegelman.
AGC Studios/Vertigo Entertainment/BoulderLight Pictures-Signature Entertainment/Netflix.
94 mins. USA. 2023. UK and US Rel: 18 October 2024. Cert. 15.
