The hype and hook of Woman of the Hour is admittedly fascinating — an actual serial killer ends up as a contestant on the cheesy TV show The Dating Gamebeing one of the three prospective romantic options. He was even chosen by the woman on that episode of the show, a woman who could’ve easily become one of his next victims. It’s wild (and the actual footage of serial killer Rodney Alcala in that episode is uncomfortable and disturbing), sure, but Woman of the Hour very smartly goes beyond this historical tidbit. It’s a much more expansive film that’s less interested in just The Dating Game gimmick, and is more curious about how this murderer got away with what he did, and who he did it to.
Woman of the Hour follows Rodney Alcala (played with a queasy, awkward charm by Daniel Zovatto) over several years as he kills women, with The Dating Game appearance interspersed throughout. Anna Kendrick (who stepped up to direct the film after its previous director left the project and funding was about to fall through) plays a struggling actor in 1978 who decides to do The Dating Game for a quick gig. Portraying Cheryl Bradshaw, the real-life woman who appeared on the show with Alcala, Kendrick’s character and her fate are used to present a contrast to Alcala’s other interactions with women in the film. It all results in a tense, fascinating film that may fill you with righteous fury.
The Dating Game Killer
The film begins with one of Alcala’s many murders, which have a kind of standard template. Often using his skills as a photographer, combined with awkward flattery and flirtatious interest, Alcala would try to convince someone that he is safe to be alone with. In the opening scene, it’s a woman whose boyfriend split with her during their road trip, and she’s comforted by Alcala’s presence before she is assaulted and killed. We’ll see this play out a couple more times throughout the film, always tense and with a dreadful kind of inevitability.
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That dread infects The Dating Game segments that are skillfully edited into Rodney’s story, and builds as we realize that Cheryl may pick Rodney to go on a date with. It’s exacerbated by the realization of one audience member, Laura (Nicolette Robinson), who is sure she recognizes Alcala as the last man seen with her friend before she was found dead. Her boyfriend is passively dismissive, increasing Laura’s anxiety. She goes to the security office at ABC where the show is being filmed, desperate to notify somebody. Robinson gives a performance of pure frustration here and in a later scene at a police station, a great reflection of the film’s simmering fury.
Rodney Alcala and the Broken Society That Helped Him Kill
Woman of the Hour is a justifiably angry film that asks why women aren’t believed, and how abuse is allowed to happen. Rodney Alcala is an extremely appropriate serial killer to express this, to reflect the broken systems and complicit people that help perpetuate abuse. Writer Ian McDonald did his research and chose wisely.
A warrant was out for Alcala’s arrest in 1968 for the rape and beating of an eight-year-old who subsequently spent 32 days in a coma; he was added to the FBI’s list of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. He was eventually arrested and labeled a sex offender, but was released after 17 months. He was re-arrested less than two months later for assaulting another minor, but was paroled after two years. He would commit at least one murder before being arrested again, this time just for marijuana possession. Then, in 1978, he got a job at The Los Angeles Times and became a contestant on The Dating Game.
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How could this happen? How utterly ineffectual are all the systems in place that are supposed to protect people? That’s the angry question at the heart of Woman of the Hourwhich is cleverly directed by Kendrick to detail the cruel indifference or abject cowardice of people (and the courage of some). She has a very subtle touch, lingering for just a moment, for example, on the way uninvited men invade women’s spaces (a hand on the hip, a touch of their hair). She captures the tiny ways that people avoid responsibility, like a man in a truck choosing to look away from the beaten and bloody face of one Alcala victim and keep driving instead, or how Cheryl’s neighbor (Pete Holmes) stops wanting to help when sex is off the table. It’s all so effectively infuriating.
A Harrowing Conclusion
There is some humor here, too; after all, Kendrick is a very funny person with strong comedic timing as an actor (please see her excellent trilogy of indie films with director Joe Swanberg — Drinking Buddies, Happy Christmasand Digging for Fire — for the best example of this). This is mostly found in The Dating Game segments, which provide relief from the brutal and depressing chronicle of Alcala’s kills. Tony Hale is very funny as a sleazeball game show host, a complete product of 1970s culture, and Kendrick is snappy and fun in a kind of Howard Hawks / Barbara Stanwyck way,
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There’s no humor at all, though, in the film’s final stretch. The tension is ratcheted up extremely high as The Dating Game portion comes to an unnerving climax before leading to a harrowing, gruesome finale with one of Alcala’s victims. Young actor Autumn Best, in her feature film debut, is a revelation. She masterfully guides the ending of the film in a hypnotic performance that will tighten all your muscles in an edge-of-your-seat clench. It’s a captivating conclusion.
If there’s any issue with the film, it’s that it perhaps tries too hard to make Kendrick’s character a kind of girl-boss. Her Dating Game segments change what actually happened on the show and feel more like an excuse to create an empowered female character instead of actually servicing the narrative and themes. Watching her embarrass the male contestants and namedrop scientists and philosophers is a bit silly, and is the only time the film feels out of place, as if they injected a bit of the 2020s into 1978. It’s incongruous, but otherwise, Woman of the Hour is a fresh and gripping take on the well-trodden true crime territory of serial killers, and reminds us that Kendrick is a real treasure. Woman of the Hour is streaming on Netflix. Watch it through the link below:
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