This is a departure from the Anna Kendrick I know … both a welcome and important one, for this is Ms. Kendrick’s directorial debut, and she used the opportunity to highlight the misdeeds of real-life serial killer Rodney Alcala. Think about that for a sec. Anna Kendrick, best known for a dazzling smile and some impressive musical talent in very light-weight comedies, has decided to begin her career on the other side of the camera with a film about a man who rapes and kills women.
This is what it has come to, huh? This isn’t Meg Ryan reminding us how fun it is to make a romcom. This is a romcom talent reminding us that lethal misogyny is alive and well. Point taken.
The biggest problem with making a film about a serial killer of women but wanting to tell it from the woman’s perspective is the obvious: every few scenes, you’re gonna need a new protagonist … and while the peril is constant and real, the filmmaking problem is omnipresent. The film has Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto), a smooth-talking 1970s drifter, state-hopping and timeline hopping. While Alcala’s evil might have begun in the 1960s, the film first places him alone with a soon-to-be victim in the wilds of 1977 Wyoming. Here, he shows the technique of putting the woman at ease with kind words and his photography fetish before strangling her. Worth note that he then uses CPR to revive the victim, just so he can kill her again. That is f***ed up. Seriously f***ed up.
Naturally, there is a lot of tension in this film. It establishes very early on that Rodney Alcala is somebody you never want to be alone with no matter how sweet he talks. The film didn’t really care how Rodney got to be the psychopath he grew into. Some might fault that; I applaud it. On some level, it doesn’t really matter how he became who he became, only the fact that he’s there now. Nobody criticizes a potential victim for bashing a predator’s head in instead of trying to understand where he’s coming from.
Eventually, we get around to Anna Kendrick directing herself. Sheryl (Kendrick) is a would-be starlet who clearly isn’t going anywhere in Hollywood. About to give up on her acting career, Sheryl gets a call from her agent with a gig: appearing on “The Dating Game.” This is what qualified for reality TV in the 1970s. Basic premise is an attractive guy/gal would blindly interview three suitors of the opposite sex in turn and eventually pick one to date. The catch is the pre-written questions were always suggestive and titillating (e.g. “If I were an ice cream, how would you lick me?”) I have no idea if what I wrote was an actual question, but, believe me, it could have been.
The best scenes in the film are when Sheryl becomes part of The Dating Game. Frustrated with pawn-dom, Sheryl rewrites her own questions and takes c
ontrol of the situation. No, that won’t make her any friends among game show hosts, but it sure was satisfying. The problem is that Rodney Alcala is among the three men she interviews blindly…
Woman of the Hour left me wanting more. Conventional film has led me to believe in a final climax between good and evil; that doesn’t happen here. It doesn’t mean the film is without merit; in fact, quite the opposite: what should have been a final confrontation instead becomes something of a non-sequitur – and, yet, the acting and writing in the final killer/victim confrontation is really well done. I just was hoping that the actress playing the scene would be Anna Kendrick, but she stopped being in her own film three scenes ago.
This is a compelling watch if a tad disappointing for me. I am, however, a big fan of Kendrick’s feminist take on the biopic subject and would like to see where she goes next. While I absolutely love Anna Kendrick as a romcom heroine, it is clear she has much more to share than a bright smile and another chorus of the “Cup Song.”
It’s the bio of Rodney the killer
Who made every encounter a thriller
From victim POV
It is easy to see
His charm is just misleading filler
Rated R, 95 Minutes
Director: Anna Kendrick
Writer: Ian McDonald
Genre: Films that make you cringe
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Thrill-seekers who can detach
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Women who identify a little too much
