The review of the film about the true story of serial killer Rodney Alcala which marks Anna Kendrick's directorial debut. On Netflix from October 18, 2024.
It is widely known that Anna Kendrick was a top-level actress, many are the performances with and through which she was able to demonstrate her undoubted qualities, starting with the versatility that allowed her to range between different genres and registers. That the same one, whose curriculum also includes roles as executive producer in projects for the small and big screen, was also a very good director we discover only now that her debut behind the camera entitled Woman of the Hour was made available on Netflix last October 18, 2024.
Woman of the Hour is an effective and convincing first work both in the narrative structure and in the packaging.
The film in question, which also saw her engaged in front of the camera as a co-star, on paper was not at all easy to make. The difficulty coefficient was in fact quite high due to the many risk factors and potential complications inherent in the script and the story told in it. Factors, these, that would have required greater experience than that provided by a debutant, but that instead Kendrick was able to complete excellently, demonstrating a confidence and lucidity typical of a veteran.
This has allowed the result to present itself to the viewer on duty, including the subscriber to the star-spangled platform, as an effective and convincing first work both in the narrative structure and in the packaging, with the latter enriched by commendable photographic care, in the costumes and in the setting. Care that we feel extends to the interpretations of Daniel Zovatto and Kendrick herself.
Woman of the Hour is in fact and in fact a strong denunciation of misogyny in America in the Seventies
Written by Ian McDonald, the film is a disturbing thriller with at times palpitating tension set in Los Angeles in the late Seventies based on an incredible and controversial true story, that of the meeting that actually took place in 1978 between an aspiring actress named Cheryl Bradshaw and the femicide Rodney Alcala (the number of murders attributed to him could be close to 130 cases, from California to New York) during the recording of one of the episodes of the famous TV program, The Dating Game, or the American version of The Dating Game.
The episode just mentioned represents the crucial point and intersection in which the three narrative levels along which the story unfolds converge: Bradshaw's human and professional journey, the wave of crimes perpetrated by the Mexican serial killer, and the reconstruction of the meeting between Cheryl and Rodney during the recording of the aforementioned episode. The three levels alternate, giving shape and substance to a very well-crafted insistent dribble, which allows the timeline to stratify and develop through the points of view and perspectives of some of the protagonists of this absurd and shocking umpteenth black page of American history.
And it is from the union of these that the motivations pushed the people involved in the project to make it materialize on the screen. Woman of the Hour is in fact and in the facts as they have been reported a strong denunciation against the marked misogyny of those years and at the same time an indictment against a society in which a murderer could move undisturbed, even going on television. A society that had ignored the repeated reports to the police of the many women who miraculously escaped him. Here lies the extra element and the main reason for interest in a film that has a lot to say on the issues just highlighted.
Woman of the Hour: evaluation and conclusion
Anna Kendrick debuts behind the camera with a disturbing and solid thriller set in the Seventies that recalls the true story of serial killer Rodney Alcala. With and through it, characterized among other things by noteworthy packaging and writing, the film presents itself to the public as an effective analysis of the misogyny of the time. All embellished by performances, including those of the new director and Daniel Zovatto, of great depth.