Woman of the Hour (2023)
Sheryl Bradshaw is a struggling actress in Hollywood, and she’s starting to wonder what she’s even doing in Los Angeles anymore. Then she gets a call from her agent telling her that Sheryl’s got a guest spot on The Dating Game. Sheryl’s a little hesitant at first because the show is goofy and sometimes sexist, but it’s worth a shot, right?
What she doesn’t know is that Bachelor Number Three is Rodney Alcala, serial killer and all-around creep, but it doesn’t take long for her to figure it out. Well, the creep part, anyway.
Woman of the Hour is based on the true story of Alcala and Cheryl Bradshaw’s time on The Dating Game. Just as in the film, Bradshaw felt something was off about Alcala, and even though the two of them won an all-expenses-paid trip to Carmel, which, to be honest, is a bit much for a first date, she ditched the guy and got as far away from him as possible.
Her instincts were correct, as Alcala was charged with raping and murdering seven women, but it’s speculated that he may have had as many as one-hundred thirty victims. How did he get on The Dating Game? The producers’ excuse was that it was harder to vet people in the seventies. I don’t completely buy it. Alcala already had a criminal record in the late seventies, and while it was a slog to check up on someone back then, it wasn’t impossible.
Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut is really solid. The film has the look of the nineteen-seventies down, as well as how LA would have felt at the time, which probably isn’t too hard considering the Los Angeles shooting locations, such as Laura’s apartment building, probably haven’t changed much in almost fifty years.
Kendrick also got some great performances out of her actors and seemed to keep a really tight rein on a subject that is pretty disgusting and complicated.
Woman of the Hour isn’t flawless, though. It can’t seem to decide if it wants to be linear or lean towards a stream-of-conscience structure, as we have lots of flashbacks of Alcala’s earlier victims. The movie doesn’t give any indication that we should be thinking about these murders; they’re the film equivalent of a non-sequitur. It makes the story a wee bit harder to follow, which doesn’t do it any favors if the viewer is coming in sans background knowledge.
It also doesn’t give any kind of motivation for Alcala murdering women. The dude is clearly disturbed, but that’s as far as it goes. He just rapes and murders women and takes their pictures. The closest thing we get to filling out his character is one of his victims, a twelve-year old girl, wakes up next to him to find him weeping. Other than that, don’t get to peer inside Alcala’s mind even the teensiest bit.
Granted, Alcala, who died in prison in 2021, wasn’t nearly as verbose as Ted Bundy, but there’s a lot of room for speculation and maybe a little narrative liberty. Given what we know about criminology nowadays, educated guesses are possible.
Incidentally, once the film seemed destined for success, Kendrick had scruples about making money off of its heavy subject matter and decided to donate the profits to RAINN and the National Center for Victims of Violent Crime. While this is completely understandable, I kinda have to wonder how gross Kendrick would feel about it if she had peeked into the abyss a bit more.
Woman of the Hour is currently streaming on Netflix and in theaters. Rated R.
My grade: B+
Principal Cast: Anna Kendrick, Daniel Zovatto, Tony Hale, Nicolette Robinson, Pete Holmes, Autumn Best, Kathryn Gallagher, Kelly Jackle, Matt Visser, Jedediah Goodacre, Rob Morton, Dylan Schmid, Karen Holness, Denalda Williams, Jessie Fraser, Matty Finochio, Geoff Gustafson, Max Lloyd-Jones.
Directed by Anna Kendrick.
Written by Ian McDonald.