This article contains spoiler content.
Woman of the Hour is based on the real story of Rodney Alcala, a rapist and murderer that is suspected of killing upwards of 100 women over the course of a decade in the 1970s.
The film focuses on the story of Cheryl Bradshaw (Anna Kendrick, who also served as the film’s director), an aspiring actress who agrees to participate in a dating game show in the hopes of gaining exposure. Despite possessing a criminal record and having been arrested multiple times, serial killer Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto) was accepted as one of the ‘bachelors’ for the show. The film subsequently delves into the wanton ignorance of the patriarchal systems that facilitated Alcala’s continued violence and destruction.
Throughout the film, the segments featuring Alcala’s crimes provide his victims with a story, showing how they fought and almost escaped with their lives. Specifically, the opening scene of Woman of the Hour sets the stage aptly for the rest of the film; the lack of sound heightens both the graphic violence of the scene and the haunting emotional response from his victims.
Evocative performances from Nicolette Robinson and Kathryn Gallagher help set up Alcala as absolutely despicable, only exemplified by Zovatto’s chilling performance. Autumn Best shines as Amy, a character based on multiple of Alcala’s victims who survived and played pivotal roles in the trial. These encounter scenes in the film are emotionally distressing in an extremely evocative way, and certainly came as a shock to me as I wasn’t expecting such graphic detail in a 95 minute run time.
The structure of the game show acts as an effective microcosm of misogynistic society in the 1970s. The host, Ed Burke, asks Cheryl to change what she is wearing and alter how she presents herself in order to please a misogynistic male viewership. Ed provides Cheryl with pre-written questions to ask the bachelors, such as “If I served you for dinner, what would you be?”. This demonstrates how popular culture at the time reinforced domestic stereotypes of women through these sorts of dating shows – you’re not a desirable woman if you don’t define yourself by your domestic, ‘womanly’ duties. The game show setting effectively embodies these elements of contemporary society, in a nuanced and concise way.
By diverging from the set questions, Cheryl asserts herself as ‘apart’ from other women and previous candidates of the show. Though this shows the audience that Cheryl has her wits about her, can handle herself and, hopefully, will escape Rodney.
There is an essential issue that this brings up; is this what makes up the difference between survivors and victims? Does this imply that Rodney’s other victims were simply not smart enough to survive him?
I would much rather that Woman of the Hour had focussed on Amy’s story than Cheryl’s. It felt as if a choice was made to make the sensationalised game show the centre of the film (the taping of the actual show is sparse, the majority of the game show plot is completely fictionalised) rather than the girl who put Rodney’s capture into effect.
The focus on the glitz and drama around the game show feels, to a certain point, quite contrived. That Alcala was allowed to participate, and Cheryl’s close escape, are certainly provocative and vital elements to the story. In spite of this, these scenes fell a little flat for me after the first five minutes or so of the questioning.
As a result of the foregrounding of the game show scenes, Amy’s story seems pushed to the background for most of the film, only gaining our full attention in the final 15 minutes of the film. It would’ve been far more illuminating to have been able to spend more time with a character that embodies those pivotal actors in Alcala’s incarceration.
That being said, Woman of the Hour masters creating tension, as I found myself on the edge of my seat for large segments of the film, and it is certainly deserving of the praise it has received. The final lines brutally expose the negligence of the police, providing a final punch to the gut. It unwaveringly tells us that we live in a society which would rather give men the benefit of the doubt than give women their full attention.
3/5
