REVIEW: Woman of the Hour [2024]

Rating: R | Runtime: 95 minutes
Release Date: October 18th, 2024 (USA)
Studio: Netflix
Director(s): Anna Kendrick
Writer(s): Ian McDonald

Which one of you will hurt me?

The first of Rodney Alcala’s (Daniel Zovatto) victims is shown dying with the caption 1977. The second dies in 1979. It’s therefore no coincidence that director Anna Kendrick and screenwriter Ian McDonald split those scenes with our introduction to an aspiring actress (Kendrick’s Sheryl) who just booked a spot on “The Dating Game” as a way for her agent to save face in 1978. They want us to know that Rodney isn’t stopped as a result of being on national television that year. They want us to wonder if Sheryl might become one of his victims too.

That’s where the suspense lies: with the women he kills. This isn’t a police hunt between the law and the lawless. It’s not a portrait of a hero finally being able to take this monster down (although we also get that anyway). No, it’s about survival in a country where the burden of proof for the murder of a woman is often placed upon her own dead shoulders. “She should have known better.” “She should have fought harder.” “She should have told someone.” The number of women who did all those things and still found themselves taking their last breath beneath Rodney’s hands will never be known. Because no one believed them.

This is a man who picked his targets with purpose. We’re talking about people already in a vulnerable state who needed assistance. So, why not ask for or accept it from this kindly photographer roaming the streets with a smile? He has a full portfolio of models, a job at a reputable publication, an available ear. He’s everything your ex, father, and neighbor isn’t. A “good” one … until he’s not. And, considering we see many of his crimes sprinkled through Woman of the Hour, he’s a man who adapts. He’s learned when to turn the reel and when to pounce. He’s perfected the “where” to ensure nobody has an opportunity to get away.

Sheryl is an outlier. She never should have been on his radar. When he gets bold and goes on TV, Rodney does so under the assumption that the contestant who will have no choice but to choose him on charm alone can be easily manipulated and malleable—a woman without options. Sheryl is only put in that position because she’s giving the whole acting thing one last shot and was told this exposure could push her over the edge. It would have too in a perfect world—one where her success at playing to the crowd meant more than a vindictive host (Tony Hale’s Ed) who believes he was showed up. But she isn’t afraid of going back home or rocking the boat.

She also sees men for who they are. Her “friend” Terry (Pete Holmes), who’s obviously leveraging kindness for sex. Ed, objectifying her backstage without the courtesy of listening to anything she says. Rodney, once he can no long hide behind the frosted glass of a game show set. It’s what makes her improvised questions so biting and hilarious. Sheryl clocks each of the three contestants (Matt Visser’s idiot and Jedidiah Goodacre’s philanderer round them out) and caters her script to them in a way that gives her the autonomy sitting in that chair should provide. Because it’s all a performance. It must be for a woman whose life depends on knowing who the men entering her bubble truly are.

Kendrick expertly weaves this tale together in a way that gradually gives Sheryl power while also taking it away from Rodney. The flashbacks of his kills are precisely laid out so that we see him at his most ruthless and precise before witnessing how emotions risk derailing everything (either via what we presume is his first and what we hope is his last). It keeps the whole teetering because we don’t quite know where Sheryl and he lie on that spectrum. We don’t even know if their story is the main one with past and future coming and going or if she too is another flashback for the real lead: Autumn Best’s Amy.

Add Nicolette Robinson’s Laura (someone who went to the police to report Rodney as a person of interest in the rape and murder of her friend) and Dylan Schmid’s Mario (a co-worker and model of Rodney’s) and we begin to see the fear that too few of these serial killer stories possess. When the victims are pawns for the cat and mouse, it becomes about glorification versus abhorrence. When the victims become the point, we see the micro-expressions and backtracking and desperation. That’s when we notice the moments of clarity and pivots of power necessary for escape. This is life under toxic patriarchal rule. You only hope you can clock the monsters before it’s too late.