Woman of the Hour tells the story of a man who appeared in many TV series called The Dating Game, and therefore became known as “dating game killer.” The tale directed by Anna Kendrick is based on the murderous Rodney Alcala, it stars Daniel Zovatto as Alcala and Anna Kendrick as Sheryl and tackles her traumatic experiences of Alcala’s torturous games. Indeed the movie doesn’t seem to know the intended audience and which perspective it focuses on, which seems to include Alcala’s but also sparks the interest of Kendrick’s viewers. For this reason and others, it plunges far behind expectations. Like other dating shows Woman of the Hour displays a boring succession of clips without anything which can ascend. The effect is unimpressive.
Kendrick, making her directorial debut, explained that she liked the film as a means of providing what could have been a dry case in Jack’s perspective, but instead, turned out to be from the victim’s standpoint. Although this is true of the movie during its lengthy midsection, the beginning scenes plus the epilogue lose that quality and focus more on the attacker rather than his prey, most of whom do not get enough time on screen to be more than mere scratches on his mass murders pole. During these sections, Alcala is by far the most interesting character. Much of the time, he is on the stage, so to speak, with Sheryl, that part is only about half of the total running time.
Woman of the Hour allocates its first half an hour to the two principals. At the on-set, Rodney who is first introduced seems to be an amiable person (for a split second). Walking up as a photographer, his demeanor creates a deep sense of trust most especially as he’s busy taking pictures of an attractive young woman. From Kendric,k we see a fresh and close-up of Daniel Zovatto’s face and there is a total change in posture before the lens. His features illuminate beneath the camera, only for a disconcerting sense of anxiety to wash over him. The banning eyes that were focused in on Kendrick were now pupils that were security devices aimed to capture threats of the apex predator. When she dives at him, he turns out to be one of the most sadistic killers of a woman who has seemingly died on her own, in an unbelievably gruesome sight, he performs a mouth-to-mouth kiss on her before the act to establish dominance over her. As this was happening aspiring actress Sheryl was in the grueling process of being auditioned for producers who only seemed to care about her small cup size instead of her acting skills. For Sheryl apparently, a few of these incidents were based on her real-life auditions. As stated by Kendrick, these incidents were based on some of her real-life audition experiences.
Sheryl has plans of going out with Rodney all thanks to The Dating Game. Her agent told her to go there as she thought it might be a nice method to help in getting some publicity. In this case, he is there scouting for another casual partner.
The host, Ed Burke (inspired by Jim Lange and portrayed by Tony Hale) comes off as rude and during the show, Edward Sheryl abandons the questions that had been handed over to her regarding the three love-struck contestants and poses different queries. This reveals contestant number one as a dim-witted individual and contestant number two as a woman hater. To this, however, contestant number three, Rodney, remains unfazed.
Woman of the Hour does distance itself from reality, but the episode is inspired by real life and Rodney was actually on The Dating Game. Kendrick builds the suspense and keeps on building it more and more as the show goes on, or more specifically as the after-show gathering starts where some of Rodney’s more true colors start to show. These are followed by an eerie walk across an empty parking lot with footsteps being the only palpable sound in the darkness. This is the best thing Woman of the Hour comes with. But, this is also where the movie starts having issues in the production, at least from the narrative logic. Ending? Sticking the landing is not the term that best encapsulates how the film ended.
It’s also the character of Laura (Nicolette Robinson), as the audience remembers her, that doesn’t seem to work as intended. In one case, she identifies Rodney Collins as someone responsible for her friend’s death. Depressed from the sight of him on stage, she leaves the taping craving for a producer only to meet with disappointment courtesy of a security guard and the police. But the filmmakers have a different story to tell regarding Laura as in their words she is a ‘composite character’ alluding to different people who offered testimonies leading to Rodney’s arrest but were ignored. By then, she remembers, she is already quite out-of-body with some of the narration crossed in combination with the rest of the storyline.
Woman of the Hour encompasses events that are perhaps best suited for a mini-series, or perhaps a feature of a shorter duration. It can be further stated that the topic being covered would do just as well in a documentary format. The event which in reality occurred stands out clearly as a concern although it has only some slight appearances in the larger context which forms the basis of the story. It is Kenrick’s first try behind the lens and Zovatto’s first in front of it, but the lack of wholeness that one feels during the viewing could not be brushed aside. It’s good that Woman of the Hour did not have a limited theatrical release, that only streamed because it intended for a wider audience, which does make sense.
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