Woman of the Hour (2024)

Score: 5 / 5

This is why I try not to compile my list of favorites until I've seen my full yearly list. With only a few 2024 titles left to see -- clearly I should not have taken four weeks off in February -- I thought my list was pretty solid and had been considering posting it (later than usual, being after the Oscars and all, but still before April). And then I saw Woman of the Hour.

Anna Kendrick's directorial debut premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival almost a year prior to Netflix exclusively releasing it last October. I didn't know anything about it until a trusted friend slyly made a recommendation during a conversation slightly bemoaning the state of fictionalizations of true crimes, serial killers in particular. Kendrick has long flirted with the darker side of things, notably as an actor in A Simple Favor and of course Alice, Darling, and she does star in this film, but I didn't expect much from her as a director

Ian McDonald's screenplay dramatizes the real-life murder spree of Rodney Alcala, the serial rapist and murderer of anywhere between eight and 130 victims from California to Wyoming and even New York. True crime junkies might know him better as the so-called Dating Game Killer, as Alcala indeed appeared on and won a 1978 episode of The Dating Game, the year before his capture and arrest. Much like Ted Bundy, he was known to be attractive and intelligent, isolating his victims before sexually and violently assaulting them, sometimes rendering them unconscious only to revive and assault them again. His is a terrifying story, showcased in several documentaries and procedural shows in large part due to the still unknown extent of his violence.

Seemingly taking inspiration from the likes of David Fincher's Zodiac, this film is framed by vignettes of Alcala's murder spree in nonlinear arrangement, showing his disarming charm and seductive prowess at the height of his criminality. We are never meant to doubt his identity or methods; his repeated purr, "You're beautiful," stems from his primary tool: a camera he uses to photograph his victims, savoring their impending doom once he feels slighted by them. His gaze -- literalized in his camera -- provides a sense of power over life and death, and Kendrick capitalizes on subverting this generic trope. In the first vignette, before we know for sure who or what the story is about, we hear a victim first, only initially seeing her through Alcala's photographic lens as he directs her attempt at modeling while provoking her emotional reactivity. Kendrick focuses on Alcala's charm, played to sickly sweet perfection by Daniel Zovatto in a thankless role that requires a deftness to its technique. Alcala could be played as a simpering suitor who snaps, a calculating "killing machine" as the press has called him, or even a mentally ill person with two distinct personalities. He could be played as a Buffalo Bill type, seemingly impaired or pathetic before violent, uncharacteristic outbursts. But Zovatto plays him as if he's a chillingly well-adjusted incel, aware of his own oozing appeal even as his standards are impossibly high for anyone to meet. Though the film suggests that he carefully chooses his victims, Zovatto plays it as if he's really just looking for love. He even has a suggestive encounter with a young, likely queer, man at work and nearly gets him to meet him after the office closes. It's only when his date or meet-cute turns sour -- usually when the victim gets comfortable and says or does something to even in the tiniest bit emasculate or poke fun at him -- that Alcala visibly decides to punish the perceived slight to his dominance.

Yet the film is not a straightforward reworking of Alcala's crimes. Rather, it centers around the episode of The Dating Game on which the killer appeared. Kendrick herself plays Sheryl, an aspiring but failing actress trying to make it in Hollywood. Her distant agent is grasping for any opportunity, so as a last-ditch effort to be seen in the biz, she's booked as a contestant on the show, meant to anonymously ask questions of three potential men before selecting one to date based solely on his verbal responses. Of course, given the late '70s setting, she's pampered and wardrobed before the show goes live, encouraged by the show's host (a smarmy Tony Hale) to be a "good girl" and don't play too smart. Audiences don't like that. She should be upbeat, smile, and simply ask the dull, sexist questions written on her cue cards. Sheryl grins and bears it until one of her contestants piques her interest with intelligent responses.

One might wonder why a film about a misogynist serial killer would be told from the perspective of someone who was ultimately not a victim and who otherwise had nothing to do with his life, apart from their high-stress, high-stakes meet cute. The title is only mentioned once, as Sheryl's introduction to the game show stage, before she ends up taking the reins in her line of questioning. Kendrick is her typically smart and spunky self in the role, but behind the screen she feels much more deliberate and contemplative, balancing emotionally complex scenes of nuanced chemistry and gender politics with riveting when-will-he-snap encounters with a murderous chameleon. After the show, when Sheryl chooses Alcala as her date, he pressures her into going out for drinks to celebrate their hour in the spotlight, like a pre-date date. While there, she makes the wise choice to poke fun at him, and Kendrick isolates each player in the frame in increasing close-ups as they face off, planning strategic moves nonverbally while maintaining a veneer of social grace. 

It's breathtaking work from a first-time director and her team, deftly working in tandem for a specific and arresting experience that neither overstays its welcome nor ever feels preachy. The closest it gets is in its surprisingly still relevant feminist moments, depicting the horrors awaiting women who must play "nice" and smile to get through any given situation. Sheryl does it herself multiple times -- she's the real protagonist here -- with casting directors objectifying her to her face and with a platonic neighbor who wants more from her. During a break in the game show, just after Sheryl decides to stop playing "nice" with her unknown suitors and her sleazy host, her makeup artist says that, no matter her methods, the real question for her (and any woman) remains the same: "Which one of you will hurt me?" Poignant and devastating, the question encapsulates Kendrick's approach to tonally presenting this story from the perspective of several women.

And I still haven't touched on it all! Nicolette Robinson plays a woman in the audience of the game show who recognizes Alcala from a traumatic vacation in Malibu the previous year when her friend was brutally murdered. She's shunted by the studio and all but ignored, unable to pass along her warning effectively to a limelit Sheryl. Later, during their awkward post-show drink date, Sheryl gets a whiff of danger and efficiently signals to her server not to entertain them any longer. There is a constant gaze at work in the film, and most of it is female-oriented, a sort of subtle reworking of the male gaze meant to highlight the need for solidarity and aid in the presence of dangerous men; it's all the more necessary in a culture of innocuous (or "microaggressive") sexism, where prolific serial rapists and killers are empowered to commit acts of physical violence through normalized ideological violence. And Kendrick as director subtly critiques true crime films themselves by eliding gruesome or exploitative scenes of violence; in this, she reminded me especially of Sofia Coppola's version of The Beguiled, demonstrating that the worst things are not always what you don't want to see, but rather the commonplace horrors enacted between people that pave the way to greater cruelties.