WOMAN OF THE HOUR– 3 STARS

Perilously, there are two persisent traps occurring in Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut on Netflix, Woman of the Hour: his and hers. The masculinely labeled one of the two is the perpetrating spine of this true crime thriller and it belongs to serial killer Rodney Alcala, played by Don’t Breathe’s Daniel Zovatto. The man was conclusively linked to the murders of eight woman across several states between 1968 and 1979, but the number of victims could have exceeded 130. More on the adhesive glycoproteins of his figurative spider’s webs in a moment. There’s still one more constrictive conundrum to present.

The other stealthy trap pertains to Sheryl Bradshaw, the forthright aspiring actress played by Kendrick herself. In this half of Woman of the Hour’s scenario, she is but one of many individuals impeded and cornered, and the transgressors are everywhere and more numerous than any one man. Sheryl’s trap is namely the suffocating quicksand of weaponized sexism, rampant in that era and plenty prevalent still today. Every roadblock in front of her personal happiness and professional success is built with uncurbed gender bias. 

The culmination point of Woman of the Hour is when the circles of these two traps intersected on the stage of national television for an infamous slice of Hollywood legend. Unbeknownst to all involved at the time, Rodney Alcala appeared as one of three eligible bachelors on a 1978 episode of The Dating Game where Sheryl Bradshaw was the quizzing bachelorette. By recreating stunning and fascinating history complete with top-notch production design and costume work, Woman of the Hour smartly presents how these traps would press a vice of tension and feed into each other.

There’s a chance you’re hearing this jaw-dropping premise and you’re shoving Sheryl’s half of the predicament aside to concentrate on the fact Woman of Hour features a serial killer on the loose. Your instinctual senses head straight to that threat assessment step. That’s quite understandable, and the first question is always “how did he do it?” Woman of the Hour opens with that swerving and spidery revelation. The film begins in 1977 with a young woman named Sarah (Kendrick’s Pitch Perfect co-star Kelley Jakle) posing for a tall, dark, and handsome denim-clad photographer in the rustic countryside of Wyoming. 

LESSON #1: TELLING A WOMAN WHAT SHE WANTS TO HEAR– The photographer is telling Sarah what she wants to hear, verbally admiring her beauty, aura, and bravery before the camera. In this shared moment outdoors with no one around, he is calm and sweet. His words warm her spirit and work to romantically bring her closer to his lens and that of Barbarian cinematographer Zach Kuperstein. Sarah and the photographer embrace where his hands are welcomed to explore and envelope the woman. 

They stop at her throat. 

When Sarah soon falls limp, wimperish weeping begins in Rodney. Upset, he gives Sarah mouth-to-mouth breathing to revive her, only to choke her out again. That’s how Rodney Alcala did what he did. 

He wooed them words and companionship. He found lonely women looking for a good man and gave them the guise of one, masking his urges and ulterior motives with sincerity and supportive chivalry until it was too late to escape. Woman of the Hour intersperses chilling recreations of several more of Alcala’s encounters with more victims– including targets played by TV actress Kathryn Gallagher and the debuting Autumn Best– to further demonstrate and cement his drawing power.

Sheryl’s uphill journey runs parallel to those out-of-town murders where she is caught in a career crossroads. She is going nowhere in the competitive acting market because she won’t lower her principles to play a male gaze-dominated game. In her personal life, she shares her challenges with her doting platonic neighbor Terry (comedian Pete Holmes) only to see that sour too with wrongful intentions. Minorly desperate, Sheryl agrees to The Dating Game gig as a chance to be “seen.”

LESSON #2: TELLING A MAN WHAT HE WANTS TO HEAR– Preparing for her appearance, the subservient kowtowing to men continues for Sheryl between being given a more flattering wardrobe, receiving the backhanded and barbed compliments of the host Ed Burke (the chameleon Tony Hale channeling Jim Lange), and being locked into asking ditzy questions to the contestants. The female production members have come to see this routine from Burke and company on a weekly basis. Rooting on a common plight, they support Sheryl telling the men around what they want to hear, especially since straight rejection isn’t enough. In a continuously awful and unfortunate manner, women have to pull out their smooth talk to placate, diffuse, and evade insistent men as a means of emotional self-defense and pride-retaining survival. The worst realization of this, as outlined by a makeup artist poignantly played by veteran character actress Denalda Williams, is the question under all the other questions: Which one will hurt me? 

This is where the injection of Rodney Alcala to this soundstage next to Sheryl becomes so intriguing and frightening in Woman of the Hour. By that climactic point of the film, we know exactly what and who he is. Even when Sheryl rocks the apple cart to change the scripted questionnaire on Ed Burke to be more intelligent and damning of the steeped misogyny, Rodney’s answers spun by his worldy and charismatic M.O. easily stand out next to the other two bachelors, comprised of Matt Visser from the Fellow Travelers miniseries as the requisite bumbler and Jedidiah Goodacre of Finding You as the required horndog. All the while, we’re clutching our armrests and screaming for her not to fall for any of it. 

LESSON #3: PROTECTED BY DOMINANCE– Circling back to that threat assessment of a serial killer, the second question of Rodney Alcala might likely be “how did he get away with it for so long?” You would think appearing on television would be one of the showiest ways for clear danger or, at the very least, an out-of-control ego to be outed and exposed. That’s precisely where Sheryl’s social trap of Woman of the Hour condones Rodney’s. No one– well, not enough of the right people– believed that the smiling and soulful suitor could possibly be a killer, even when a woman in the studio audience (Nicolette Richardson from One Night in Miami) recognizes Rodney from a previous encounter. Red flags are unreported, expectations are warped, warnings are unheeded, witnesses are ignored, dominance is misused, and charges are dropped because men are believed sooner than women.

Justifiably, very few people are willing to step back and appreciate evil in a movie like this, but Daniel Zovatto put forth excellent acting work to convey the twisted appeal of Rodney Alcala. Zovatto had to play simultaneously fetching and icky, a hard tightrope to traverse convincingly. Stressing the greater social commentary that the film does, Woman of the Hour could have easily skewered Alcala and galavanted him about as an over-tuned cartoon menace out of trashy horror movie. Instead, Some Freaks writer Ian McDonald and Kendrick from the director’s chair acknowledged the unchecked real-life menace they had, maturely turning the right proverbial temperature knobs to make his presence suspenseful without sympathy or garrishness.

Even though a fair share of great liberties were taken to change how the actual Dating Game episode played out, the palpable lift and principled spotlight given to Sheryl’s perspective and struggle raise Woman of the Hour above a plodding true crime story or a period-era costume party. Kendrick hammers the problematic and deadly ordeal home by exploring the evidential threads and dangerous effects of two very different minefields brought together. Stone-cold seriousness hides behind the bright lights and clapping audiences, and any fluff is soaked in effective poison.