Woman of the Hour - Review

Rating: 5 out of 5

ANNA Kendrick makes a striking directorial debut with Woman of the Hour, a tense and highly disturbing serial killer movie that is based on a true story.

Far from feeling like it's trying to cash in on the current trend for mining real-life psychopaths for monetary/viewership gain (the irony, here, being merely that Netflix have gone for it), Kendrick's film serves as more of a conversation starter about sexism and misogyny, both in the historical context that allowed her subject to get away with his crimes for so long and as an insight into whether attitudes have really changed that much today.

Indeed, Kendrick found much of the subject matter resonated with her as a filmmaker, having charted similar material with another of her recent releases, Alice, Darling, which documented a coercive relationship. Having admitted, in interview, to being trapped in a coercive relationship of her own, it's little wonder that she uses the subject matter to probe stil further.

As a result, Woman of the Hour works on a number of levels beyond its basic premise, emerging as a sharp, keenly observed cautionary tale that steadfastly refuses to dishonour the memory of its many victims.

The story itself unfolds in non-linear fashion, yet is built around the terrifying fact that a serial rapist and killer named Rodney Alcala, operating in the 1970s, was able to appear on TV hit The Dating Game during his reign of terror. 

Kendrick herself plays Cheryl, the struggling actress who was convinced to appear on the show, in order to raise her profile, while Daniel Zovatto is Alcala, one of the charming contestants harbouring the darkest of secrets.

As the game show itself unfolds, the film also dips back and forth in time, to showcase some of Alcala's other kills - highlighting how he used his charisma, intelligence and photography skills to coerce young, attractive women (some of them runaways) into deserted locations, where he would rape and kill them.

Crucially, Kendrick's own camera doesn't linger over the crimes themselves - rather imbuing each of the scenes with an increasing sense of dread, and then only placing her camera in disturbing positions so as to allow her sound department (and your own imagination) to fill in the rest. It's a disconcerting tactic, designed to offer some dignity to the victims, while exposing the truly heinous nature of Alcala's crimes.

And she uses that same sense of creeping unease and dread during the game show sections, and a follow-up meeting afterwards, to convey Cheryl's own gradual realisation that all is not as it seems with her eloquent contestant.

In between, she also has some fun of her own in exploring gender politics, especially when allowing Cheryl to cut loose during the show itself, and put her suitors on the spot, exposing their preconceptions and desires for the sexual fantasists that they are.

And yet, simultaneously, she also showcases the further courageous actions of another woman, whose friend fell prey to Alcala, and who attempts to decisively intervene, only to be met with a wall of resistance and doubt - as much rooted in sexism as it is the disbelief that a killer would dare position himself in such a public spotlight.

By doing so, Kendrick also exposes the difficulty and challenge that still exists today in reporting such sexual crimes - and having them believed, a position that all too many women sadly find themselves in.

Earlier, she even allows Cheryl's experience of trying to navigate Hollywood as a young, attactive actress to explore the power dynamics and overt sexism at play in areas such as casting, or even dating - nodding to things like MeToo, as well as male egotism, the need to exploit women for their looks and the expectations surrounding bar hook-ups or other casual relationships. It has a wearying effect on her central character, which is conveyed extremely well in another typically eye-catching performance from Kendrick.

Zovatto, on the other hand, is able to display equal parts intelligence, charm and menace to show how Alcala was able to lure so many women; yet, while also being allowed a brief moment of self-loathing and the odd insight that may explain his motivations and past, the film never sets out to make Alcala sympathetic or sexy (in the celebrity killer sense). He is a monster, played realistically so, which makes Zovatto's own performance all the more grim and chilling.

If this sounds that Woman of the Hour is more social commentary than thriller, then it's also tribute to Kendrick that her film effectively functions as the latter as well, with the filmmaker keeping a tight grip on viewers' attentions and enabling them to feel like they have witnessed a high class genre entry.

Yet with a denouement that highlights the true extent and vastness of Alcala's crimes, Woman of the Hour achieves exactly what it most sets out to: leaving viewers horrified, uneasy and demanding to know how crimes of this nature were (and continue to be) left undiscovered and disbelieved for so long.