As the revered historian Netflix tells it, not being murdered by a serial killer was an impressive feat in the past. Like, was every dude in the 1970s/80s a mass murderer? It’s a good thing that the violent, disturbed tendencies men once had towards women has been totally and completely removed from society…
It feels like the answer to “would you rather be alone in the woods with an unknown man or a bear” should be “Did you know that one time, in the 1970s, a highly prolific serial killer went on The Dating Game and won?” It could also be “You should watch Woman of the Hour.” Because you should watch Woman of the Hour no matter what.
Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut is legitimately remarkable. It is proof that you can craft a thrilling, tense film about unspeakable crimes without either sanitization or salaciousness. It also fiddles with chronology in a way that doesn’t feel like a Christopher Nolan crutch/gimmick but thoughtfully builds a narrative. It does all this in 95 minutes, which is pitch perfect proof that economy of storytelling is the simple favor all filmmakers should provide.
Sheryl Bradshaw (Kendrick), who is based on a real-life person who really lived this, went on a blind-romance, goofy gameshow in the late 1970s and chose Rodney Alcala (Rodney) to go on a date with. Rodney killed a lot of people. Women and girls, in specific. This was not revealed as part of the quirky Q&A during the TV show’s taping.
The movie knows you know though, which is how you know Kendrick and writer Ian McDonald know what they’re doing. It doesn’t play coy, but centers the actual victims straight out of the gate. Brief though the exchange is, Sarah (Kelley Jakle) is allowed to be a full person before she becomes a chalk outline. The sequence immediately demonstrates what the rest of the film sustains: The brutality is conveyed but never exploited.
As the movie skips around from victim to victim and back and forth to Sheryl’s chilling encounter, it portrays without preaching certain horrors of womanhood. Like for Laura (Nicolette Robinson), who tells her boyfriend she knows, for a fact, that bachelor number three at The Dating Game taping they’re watching is the guy who killed her friend. She tells him she is 90% sure that it’s him. So he hits her with a “oooh, so you’re not really sure then, are you honey?” Or like for Amy (Autumn Best), who has less than one groggy, posttraumatic moment to think up how to stroke a killer’s ego long enough to survive. Or like for Sheryl, who knows over the course of one Mai Tai that Rodney isn’t the regular kind of bad date.
Other than the novelty of the insane fact that, again, an active serial killer went on and won a televised dating show, Woman of the Hour could have been redundant. There’s an almost unbearable glut of true crime-adjacent fictionalized narratives right now, and that’s just the stuff with Ryan Murphy’s name on it. The difference a perspective makes cannot be understated. It’s the reason why even selfish cinephiles should stop praying at the altar of their auteurs. New voices make new things.
There aren’t many female serial killers. If you Google “list of female serial killers” you get a Wikipedia page that lists 71. The full list of all serial killers is massive. Seriously, is this just what guys did in their free time before 1990? If you Google “serial killer movie directed by women,” you get two: Monster from director Patty Jenkins, and Woman of the Hour. No wonder the latter feels like a legitimately fresh, responsible offering from the genre.
Grade = A-
Other Critical Voices to Consider
Wendy Ide at the Observer (UK) says “Kendrick’s knack for capturing period detail goes beyond the psychedelic synthetics and kipper ties. She taps into the treacherous sexism that was hardwired into the entertainment industry and wider culture of the time, both of which are shown to be minefields of fragile male egos and potential violence.”
Jenn Adams at Strong Female Antagonist says “Each heteronormative relationship, both onscreen and off, begins with the woman assessing whether the man can be trusted and dating in a patriarchal world puts women in danger. Yes, it’s true that not all men have ill intent, but the system is designed to dismiss women’s concerns while prioritizing men’s pleasure and we will only survive by playing the game. “
Sarah G. Vincent says “While watching Woman of the Hour, it feels like a quotidian reprise to Late Night with the Devil. Lately there have been a ton of movies exploring Seventies television culture. While demons were the guests in the horror film about the pitfalls and danger of unbridled ambition, Kendrick and Donald explore a more human face of evil.”