Anna Kendrick makes her directorial debut with Woman of the Hour, the Netflix original film based on the true story of Rodney Alcala, a vile serial killer whose decade-long crime spree resulted in the murders of at least eight women and girls.
Woman of the Hour stars Kendrick as Cheryl Bradshaw, one of Alcala’s near-miss victims, and Daniel Zovatto as Alcala. Following a split, non-linear timeline, Kendrick’s debut film lays bare a number of Alcala’s crimes as well as his appearance on a 1978 episode of The Dating Game, earning him the nickname “The Dating Game Killer”.
In 1977, a young woman poses for Rodney Alcala in the desert. As he takes her picture, he convinces her to tell him about a painful breakup before he strangles her. Just when you think the attack is over, Alcala brings her back from the brink of death so that he can relish the fear in her eyes before doing it all over again. In 1979, Alcala finds a runaway hiding away at a motel. Convincing her that she could be a model, the runaway joins Alcala on a road trip to Joshua Tree where he takes her picture in the sunset before ambushing her. When she comes to, bound and partially naked, she realises Alcala has raped and beaten her. In 1971, while a young flight attendant is moving into her new apartment, Alcala is recruited by her to help move furniture. After he helps her, Alcala attacks and kills her.
In 1978, after another unsuccessful audition, Cheryl Bradshaw is pushed by her agent to be a contestant on The Dating Game to try to launch her career. A popular game show at the time, The Dating Game pit a bachelorette against three mystery bachelors, asking them increasingly banal and sexist questions until she chooses one to meet face to face. Cheryl, determined to let her intelligence lead her, goes completely off-script and eventually chooses Alcala as the winner. After a series of increasingly unsettling changes in his behaviour, Cheryl narrowly avoids becoming one of his victims and Alcala goes on to commit further crimes.
As a self-proclaimed true crime junkie who spends an embarrassing amount of time listening to and watching as much crime content, she can get her grubby little hands on, I found Kendrick’s vision for a serial killer biopic really refreshing. For one thing, choosing someone relatively unknown like Alcala is a great way to set her work apart. Despite not being as famous as monsters like Gacy, Ramirez, Bundy or Holmes, Alcala is arguably one of North America’s most prolific criminals with a projected victim count of over 130 people. Zovatto is suitably creepy as Alcala too, toeing the line between charming and terrifying with a little too much ease, playing everyone around him until he can get exactly what he wants from them.
Cheryl Bradshaw is not Kendrick’s best role of her career; perhaps in an effort to be the director, her role as an actor in this took a backseat. There are moments, micro-expressions, where Kendrick really shines in front of the camera, perfectly expressing the discomfort of women who are forced to take responsibility for their safety around predatory men. As a director, Kendrick shows incredible promise; she has an uncanny ability to find the most beautiful and creative shots, using windows and mirrors to her advantage to create enthralling and unsettling scenery.
Over the past decade or so, as podcasts have increased in popularity, the collective interest in true crime content has also skyrocketed. Netflix produces a veritable smorgasbord of true crime docuseries and dramas, covering notorious criminals like the Menendez Brothers and Jeffrey Dahmer. From films like Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile to viral shows like Don’t F*ck with Cats, the general direction of true crime content is to focus on the perpetrator, diving into their lives and psyche in an attempt to satiate the curiosity of its viewers.
Kendrick, to her credit, spends a lot of her film’s runtime homing in on Alcala’s victims, giving the handful that she was able to show the time to take up space, express nuance and emotion in the face of horrible circumstances. Unlike other titles of the genre, most notably those created by Ryan Murphy, Kendrick’s foray into directing a true crime biopic doesn’t relish in the pain of victims or attempt to commodify a serial killer. Rather, it seeks to examine the crossroads where misogyny and violence meet and how they inevitably shape how woman navigate every day of our lives.
Woman of the Hour is streaming now on Netflix.