Woman of the Hour is a tense and dark look at the true story of how a serial killer was allowed to continue to victimize women despite all the warning signs. It ultimately falls a bit short of being a great movie because of the difficulty of choosing which victim to focus on, making it harder for the audience to connect to the story.
Full Disclosure: Woman of the Hour was one of the big world premieres at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival in 2023 (although I didn’t get a chance to see it at the time). It was therefore surprising to see that it’s just being released now. Apparently, it was purchased by Netflix, who sat on it for a year before finding time for it in their release schedule. Not having seen it originally, I’m not sure if part of the delay involved any edits or significant changes in the intervening year. I ended up seeing it at the TIFF Lightbox Theatre this week, because I prefer to see movies on the big screen whenever I get a chance, but it will finally be available for streaming to the public on Netflix starting today.

Review

Woman of the Hour is the directorial debut by Anna Kendrick. It follows the true story of serial killer Rodney Alcala, a man who was able to commit numerous rapes and murders in the 70s across the US, despite being well known to police and often living in full public view. The title refers to the fact that he even appeared on 70s TV show The Dating Game, where the “woman of the hour” Cheryl Bradshaw chose him for a date amongst a panel of three contestants. That event forms the central part of the movie, with some of the focus being given to Cheryl (played by Kendrick) and her attempts to make it as an actress in Hollywood.

First off I’ll say that I wish that this was a movie I had gone into knowing nothing about the film or the subject matter. Knowing that this was about a serial killer who appeared on The Dating Game took away too much of the mystery and foreboding surrounding that part of the story. Although the movie also undercuts itself in this way as well. The very first scene we see is one where Alcala kills one of his victims, so from the jump we know that this is a film about a serial killer, and even if I didn’t already know, it was clear that he was going to cross paths with Cheryl.

The film was very well made overall, and it speaks to Kendrick’s ability as a burgeoning directing talent that she was able to infuse the movie with as much tension as it had. Two scenes stand out in that light – one where Cheryl goes for a drink with Alcala after the show, and another later on when a young runaway is attempting to escape Alcala’s control.

The true story of what happened, and how Alcala was able to abuse and murder women despite all of the warning signs that should have been obvious to police (including the friend of a murdered woman who tries to report him as a suspect) was both interesting and alarming. What prevents this movie from being better, however, is that there isn’t enough of a personal tale in there for us to emotionally sink our teeth into.

Sheryl and Alcala on The Dating Game, right after he’s charmed her enough for her to choose him to be her date, but just before she starts to sense there’s something off about him.

The only narrative through line in the movie is Alcala himself, but the film obviously wasn’t going to focus on him as the protagonist (and seemed to have little interest in delving into explaining his psyche and the reasons why he would have committed the murders). So what we were left with were a bunch of short clips of unconnected women who came and went from the story without us getting a chance to get to know them. The closest the audience comes to being allowed to engage with a character are the segments with Cheryl, but hers is an awkward story to focus on because her character has no hand in Alcala’s ultimate apprehension and the ending of the movie.

The ”thesis” of the movie, if one could call it that, can be summed up in the first scene, where the first of Alcala’s victims that we meet explains why she left home with her ex-boyfriend despite the objections of her mother that he was “risky”, to which she replies, “everyone is risky”. To that end, the real story here is the failure of the system (and obviously, mostly men) to adequately protect women, or really, to treat them with any modicum of deserved respect.

This is still a movie that I would recommend that people watch, but it’s one which ultimately falls short of being a stand-out serial killer movie or a notable movie about women’s empowerment.

Spoilers Ahead

Zovatto as Alcala, using one of his favoured tricks to lure women to their deaths, by convincing them to be “subjects” of his photography.

While overall this is a dark and depressing movie about human nature and the relations between men and women, the one triumph the audience is allowed comes through a character we’re introduced to about half way through the film. She’s a young runaway who is never even named, but is ultimately one of the two women whose story the film focusses on the most, and the one who really ends up being the real hero of the movie. The girl manages to escape at the end by pleading with Alcala not to tell anybody about the “rough night” they had, saying it would be embarrassing. In this way she gets him to let his guard down and not kill her, and she is able to escape and call the police a short time later when he uses the bathroom at a rest stop.

Cheryl also survives. While she goes for a drink with Alcala following the taping of The Dating Game, she quickly gets a bad feeling about him and so refuses to go with him on the trip that was being paid for by the show for the “winners”. The way the movie jumps around in time, which includes scenes of Alcala stalking women that take place chronologically after his appearance on the show means though, that while we aren’t sure that Cheryl will survive until she does, we already know that her story doesn’t end his story or the story of the murders.

The two women who survives have one thing in common – they’re both very smart – which I guess ends up being the main lesson of the film, that it’s up to women to be smart enough to protect themselves because no one else will. In the end, it’s an uncomfortable film in a good way. I just wish there had been a more clear-cut personal story at the center of the plot, instead of feeling at times a bit disjointed. To some extent the filmmakers were held back by the true story they were trying to portray, so while I sympathize with the difficulties this would have entailed, ultimately the filmmaker chooses the story.

Autumn Best as the unnamed runaway who helps bring down Alcala through her intelligence. Her performance is an absolute highlight of the film.

5 Quick Hits

The actor who played Rodney Alcala, Daniel Zovatto, gave a very good performance. He was able to shift seamlessly between being charming one second and dangerous the next. He was really believable as a man who was appealing enough to convince women to go out with him, but who was barely containing the darkness within.
When I looked up the credits for the film, I surprised to see that it had been written by a man (Ian McDonald). I’m not sure how much of this was Kendrick’s influence as director and producer, but the film appears to have such a sensitivity and understanding about what women go through on a daily basis (one example being an early scene where Sheryl attempts to audition for a film role for two men) that I assumed the screenwriter was also a woman. Kudos to McDonald.
Some movies set within a particular time period like to really highlight that fact, as if screaming at the audience “Look, this is historical!” To its credit, this movie didn’t do that. There were obviously style and technological indicators that it was set in the 70s, but it was all done subtly that we were quickly immersed in the story itself, rather than being constantly reminded that it was a different time.
The actress who plays the young runaway at the end is a relative newcomer named Autumn Best. She only has one other credit IMDb, a 13-episode stint on the show 4400. I have to imagine that we’ll be seeing much more of her, because she was fantastic. She managed to come across as both vulnerable and tough, naïve but intelligent. It was a very noteworthy performance.
In a film that’s as bleak as this one is overall, it’s important to have a few moments of levity. In this movie, that actually comes during the Dating Game segment, when Kendrick’s character ditches her fatuous pre-scripted questions to really grill the male contestants on their thoughts about women. It’s both funny and poignant.