A debut directorial feature is an exciting prospect from the audience’s perspective. It allows them to experience a new voice in the filmmaking sphere and, consequently, a fresh bout of energy in the filmmaking itself. To expect that voice to exhibit an encompassing uniqueness from its inception would be too much, but a confluence of different inspirations rising through as an expression of ideas can be fascinating.
Such is the case with Anna Kendrick. As much as it is a film squarely set in the 1970s, an adaptation of a true-crime event about serial killer Rodney Alcala, who would appear on a 1978 taping of the game show “The Dating Game,” it is also very much an examination of systemic misogyny and its intersection with violence through a 21st-century lens.
The above line might suggest the film’s flaw is the failure of faithful reconstruction of that era, but that is hardly the case. On the contrary, Kendrick and screenwriter Ian McDonald, utilizing a non-chronological screenplay, manage to highlight the plight and danger of women even during the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Kendrick both directorially and through her lead performance as Sheryl Bradshaw highlights both the macroaggressions and the microaggressions faced by women in the film industry.
By placing the character of Sheryl Bradshaw as an actor auditioning for roles, we see Kendrick’s Bradshaw struggling to stay affable and yet always on guard, failing to land roles precisely because she doesn’t meet the requisite criteria of visual objectification rather than roles with dense character. Her intelligence and her quick wit also become a turn-off for most men. It is heavily hinted that her physical appearance had been the onus of her being invited to “The Dating Game,” but it is her charm and her wittiness that makes her a hit with the game show’s live audience. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t sit well with the host, Ed Burke (Tony Hale), and some of the contestants on that show, sans one.
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The film deals with that one contestant and, through Alcala, tries to explore the dangers faced in a world that is supposed to be open to exploring both physically and through the isles of knowledge and emotion. Alcala’s MO as an arty photographer luring in women with promises of emblazoning them in celluloid, making them a star, or being easy-going and polite and utilizing that as the icebreaker feels oddly surreal. Kendrick’s achievement is in letting the viewers seep in and marinate with the emotions experienced by these women under the crosshairs of Alcala, as they slowly start to feel unnerved once the visage of the charming, educated artistic individual falls away by just a glance or a twitch of his eyebrows.
It’s through the choices of shots—the emphasis of the camera lens doubling almost as a target, removing a strand of hair from a woman’s face and breaking into their personal space, leading to the woman either being unprepared or completely on guard and flustered—that allows “Woman of the Hour” to be unnervingly effective. It seamlessly allows the viewer to experience the discomfort and unease. There are shades of long dolly shots of unnerving precision that remind one of Fincher, while the affable demeanor hiding the discomfort of the characters reminds you of a much more toned-down Coen Brothers joint.
Daniel Zovatto’s performance as Rodney Alcala is what clinches the overall film. It’s quite debatable as to the effectiveness of the structuring of the scenes recounting Alcala’s killing spree, with the film jumping between timelines. The achronological nature of the screenplay undercuts the tension of the present-day plot dealing with the game show and the overall dread and thrill that would have worked more for a limited-location film. The film also feels unfocused when it deals with a storytelling strand of one of the women who would recognize Alcala but whose pleas are ignored by the authorities. Due to the undeveloped nature of that strand, it feels ineffective.
The ineffectiveness of the screenplay involving the past sequences doesn’t take away from the individual impact of those scenes or the creepiness evoked by Zovatto during those moments. The soulful rockstar demeanor hiding a homicidal streak within is terrifying due to the subtlety of the transformation, and the film also wisely deals with his apprehension, with the narrative allowing itself to move beyond Sheryl Bradshaw. While that turn might be surprising, it, however, highlights the thesis of the film itself through the title.
“The Woman of the Hour” represents not just the woman at the crosshairs of a serial killer managing to ensure his apprehension, but also the Woman of the Hour rising above the sleaze and the razzle-dazzle confines of late-night television and managing to make herself “seen” beyond the definitions of the film industry and even the decade at large, 70s or present day.
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