by Rob DiCristino“Which one of you will hurt me?”
“What are girls for?” asks Cheryl Bradshaw (Anna Kendrick), a beautiful young contestant on the hit ‘70s game show The Dating Game. The aspiring actress is having a bit of fun with the trio of handsome dopes sitting on the other side of the stage divider and making the most of her twenty-ish minutes of fame before she heads home empty-handed. The Columbia-educated New Yorker doesn’t expect a coherent answer, of course. This isn’t the time or place for a real connection. This is all artifice. Lights and cameras. She’s supposed to be asking these boys about their favorite food and their ideal first date. She’s supposed to be smiling and laughing with a demure charm that entices them — and the live studio audience — but never threatens them. Witty, but never smart. Provocative, but never emasculating. And why? Because boys are babies, says host Ed Burke (Tony Hale), and they’ll only accept a girl who lets them act like one. That’s what girls are for, right? To be accepted. Permitted to exist. If Cheryl wants to make it in Hollywood, she’ll remember that.Girls serve another purpose for Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto), the serial killer who’d been seducing them with some success for at least a few years before crossing paths with Cheryl on The Dating Game. For Rodney, girls are targets. Playthings. They’re extensions of his ego, living manifestations of power fantasies that he can’t seem to fulfill without causing someone pain. You’d never know that by looking at him, though. He’s a photographer. He’s articulate. Handsome. Sensitive. Unlike Terry (Pete Holmes), Cheryl’s over-eager Nice Guy neighbor who thinks constant praise is the way into her heart (or at least her bed), Rodney knows how to make a woman feel valued. What are girls for? “I suppose that’s up to the girl,” he replies with a wry smile that assures the other contestants he’s got this thing wrapped up. And he does. For all her intellect, Cheryl’s just as susceptible to his charms as Sarah (Kelley Jakle) or Charlie (Kathryn Gallagher) or any of the other women he’s lured into danger over the years. Will Cheryl end up like them? That, as Rodney says, is up to her.
Based on the unsettling true story of “The Dating Game Killer,” Woman of the Hour is a thoughtful new wrinkle in the true crime genre and a sparkling directorial debut for Academy Award-nominee Anna Kendrick, whose life spent as a woman in Hollywood — and really just the world, I suppose — makes her an ideal choice to bring Ian McDonald’s clever and agile screenwriting to life. As Woman of the Hour threads Cheryl’s journey through a misogynistic Hollywood hellscape with runaway Amy’s (Autumn Best) courtship with a handsome photographer who convinces her to model for him in a lonely California desert, it also introduces us to Laura (Nicolette Robinson), a woman in the Dating Game audience who knows that Rodney is dangerous and will spend a truly distressing stretch of her screen time trying to get someone to believe her. Woman of the Hour is about that frustration, the concessions women have to make to be seen and heard, and the risks they take just to go on a job interview, meet for a first date, or walk through a parking lot at night.Woman of the Hour is far from the trashy Lifetime thriller its logline suggests, however, as Kendrick downplays the sensational violence in favor of a more delicate touch that keeps her female characters’ humanity front and center. She’s constantly working in the margins, whether it’s cutting to reaction shots of the make-up artists when Cheryl lands a quip against the paternalistic Ed or holding on Cheryl as she quietly signals to a waitress not to bring those drinks Rodney just ordered for them. Not only does it give these women more texture in situations when they’re usually playing second fiddle to more bombastic men, but it also grants a genuine elegance to Rodney’s seduction. Consider a rapid-fire Q&A session that has Cheryl trying to destabilize her suitors with questions about Einstein and Immanuel Kant: Rodney volleys right back with aplomb, demonstrating the very depth that Cheryl had dismissed as a possibility from the start. We’ll only feel tension if we believe she could fall for him, and we do! She’s human! That’s how we get ourselves into these messes: We’re all human beings.Kendrick acquits herself well as her own leading lady, fleshing-out the underwritten Cheryl with a performance that suggests she’s been in her character’s shoes more than once. Zovatto shines, too, playing with our expectations for a duplicitous killer by forcing us to root for him against his male rivals. One great scene finds him sparring with another contestant who insults Cheryl’s honor: We know who Rodney is. We know that he’s going to weaponize his charm to put Cheryl in danger, and yet we still want to see him stomp this arrogant chump out of principle. Woman of The Hour thrives on this kind of nuanced character work, only stumbling a bit in an underwhelming last act that prioritizes historical accuracy over emotional catharsis. Amy’s storyline is crucial to Rodney’s fate, but her lack of any meaningful connection to Cheryl creates an unfortunate drag on the last twenty minutes that might have been avoided with a little restructuring. Still, Woman of the Hour gets it right when it needs to and establishes Anna Kendrick as a capable storyteller with more than enough of an eye to step in and out of the director’s chair whenever she likes.
Woman of the Hour hits Netflix today, October 18th.
Great piece, Rob! I agree that Zovatto's performance is terrific, and by "terrific" I also mean "terrifying" -- he somehow telegraphs that subtle, dynamic shift in regard that turns a moment from safety to danger. I'll bet every woman reading this has experienced that moment; I hope this film helps everyone understand what that's like.
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