“Woman of the Hour” Buries the Lede

When you focus on the wrong character, it’s all fun and games until the credits roll.

Am I the host, or the contestant? Don’t answer that.

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As a directorial debut, Woman of the Hour is impressively competent¹; apparently Anna Kendrick has been paying attention all these years spent standing around film sets². It’s an interesting story, too, based on the real-life encounter between serial killer Rodney Alcala (played by Daniel Zovatto) and Cheryl Bradshaw (Kendrick) on The Dating Game, a game-show where (I swear I am not making this up) three swinging bachelors hidden behind a screen would try to get a date with a woman by answering her questions³.

That’s a fascinating moment in history, so it’s easy to see why Kendrick and writer Ian McDonald decided to tell the story. They embellish a little; not much is known about Cheryl, so they flesh out her character a bit, making her an aspiring actress with a feminist streak. There’s a great idea in there—a cat and mouse between a monster and a tired, intelligent woman⁴ (some of Cheryl’s exhausting experiences as a woman in Hollywood were apparently pulled directly from Kendrick’s own life) who is initially taken in by a sociopath’s easy charm and slowly figures out she’s in trouble.

But the film makes a miscalculation. Seeking to demonstrate just how dangerous and crazy Rodney is, we’re shown several of his victims (all based to large extent on the real-life murders that Alcala committed)—as well as a girl who escaped him after being raped and brutalized (based on Monique Hoyt and fictionalized in the film as Amy [Autumn Best]). In the film, Amy is a runaway who is charmed by Rodney’s “you could be a model” come-ons and drives with him out to the desert, where he assaults her. When she wakes up, she’s smart enough to play on his emotions and pretends to be totally fine with what she’s been through, and manages to stay alive long enough to make a run for it and call the police⁵.

The problem here is that as interesting as Cheryl’s Dating Game encounter is, she isn’t really the main character here, or shouldn’t be. Amy is, or should be.

What Are Girls For?

This is a real “Jesus Fucking Christ” moment in the film.

I can totally understand why Cheryl is the focus here. The whole Dating Game angle is one of those amazing moments you can’t believe actually happened⁶: A real-life serial killer was a contestant on a cheesy romance game show⁷, and actually got chosen as the winner! That’s an irresistible hook, and if McDonald and Kendrick had fictionalized a bit more and made the dynamic between Cheryl and Rodney a whole thing, cutting back the Alcala backstory a bit, that would have worked gangbusters.

But Amy’s story is arguably a lot more interesting. Cheryl had a weird day: She had a shitty audition that pushed her to the edge of quitting acting and going home, took one last stab at it by appearing on a shitty game show where she was treated like crap by the host and then was almost assaulted and murdered by the weirdo she selected⁸. But Cheryl goes home at night and gets to move on with her life. Amy is a smart kid with none of Cheryl’s advantages who is brutalized, terrified, and powerless who nonetheless outsmarts her abuser and makes a thrilling dash to safety. In real life, Alcala escaped when Hoyt called the police, but she showed up in court years later to ensure Alcala never saw the light of day again.

Cheryl’s story is interesting. Amy’s is compelling.

Which One Of You Will Hurt Me?

I’ve seen that expression on people’s faces, what does that mean?

On the other hand, I can also see that Amy’s story, while powerful, is perhaps familiar. We’ve seen stories about insane serial killers who are fooled by their plucky, not-ready-to-die-just-yet victims. We haven’t seen too many stories based on real life game show contestants who were serial killers in their spare time⁹. In that sense, the focus on Cheryl works to differentiate the film and offer something we maybe haven’t seen before. But it just isn’t as interesting as it could have been¹⁰.

Which isn’t to say that Cheryl’s story doesn’t deserve to be told (in fact, I wish we knew more about her and her perspective on the experience) or that the trauma and fear experienced by the fictional version of her isn’t interesting. As I said in the beginning, there’s a lot of potential there—in the slow burn of Cheryl realizing Rodney’s kind of dangerous, in the commercial break scenes when Rodney is absolutely freaking out the other bachelors with his intense sociopathic energies¹¹—but it’s squandered because it’s not the focal point of the story.

There’s a challenge in any sort of criticism because we tend to think in zero-sum terms—unless you’re giving something five stars and labeling it a classic, there’s a sense that it somehow failed¹². That’s not really the case; Woman of the Hour does a lot of stuff really, really well and is worth watching. The Amy material is just so distracting because it really wants to be the main part of the story—and the narrative possibilities are terrific. The flashbacks of Rodney murdering his way through the female population of America could serve as clues to how Amy will survive, giving us flashes of his guilt and susceptibility to flattery, showing us how resilient and smart Amy is while living on the street. Granted, you could do a similar deep dive into the Cheryl/Dating Game stuff, but the lack of a big climactic confrontation in that part of the film would still be a letdown¹³.

Any appearance I make on a Dating Game-esque show would also be a letdown, because I’m actually a lot more normal than you think¹⁴. Shut up, I am.

NEXT WEEK: MaXXXine accepts a life it doesn’t deserve.

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1. Trust me, one superpower we incompetents possess is the ability to detect competence. It enrages us.

2. Unlike me, who has squandered every opportunity he’s ever had. No regrets, opportunities lead to work.

3. Man, the world was a weird place <checks notes> not so long ago. Then again, we now have Fantasy Suites on The Bachelor. We’re in hell, we just don’t know it.

4. This is probably a redundancy.

5. If I’ve learned one thing from a lifetime of watching horror and crime movies, it’s that I would definitely never escape a serial killer. Seems like a lot of effort.

6. Like some recent elections.

7. As a person whose partner forces him to watch The Voice on a regular basis, I really shouldn’t be throwing stones in my glass house. And yet here we are.

8. Sadly, that sounds like a pretty typical day for actresses in Hollywood. Or anywhere else.

9. Although, at least once before.

10. Because she survived: Nothing is more interesting than terror and death, and nothing is less interesting than survival and victory. It’s why writers always save the victory for the end, when it’s too late for you to get bored.

11. My ears are burning: I would 100% be the bachelor freaking out all the other bachelors, probably because I would spend my time showing them pictures of my cats. And because The Duchess would be calling in death threats, demanding to know why I was calling myself a bachelor.

12. Also, real life. Just because I’m not rich and handsome doesn’t mean I’m some sort of troll. Right? RIGHT? <bursts into tears>

13. To be fair, Kendrick discussed being pressured to change the story so Cheryl could have a clever or powerful moment of triumph, but rejected the idea as inauthentic. It might have made for a better story, but I get why she resisted it.

14. Aside from the whole I-hate-pants thing, of course.