Woman of the Hour

In 1977 Wyoming, serial killer Rodney Alcala takes photos of a woman in the plains. After he gets the woman to open up about her painful breakup with an ex-boyfriend, he strangles her unconscious. He revives her, then strangles her to death. In 1979 in the city of San Gabriel, Amy is a teenage runaway who lives on the streets and steals occasionally. Rodney spots her sitting at a motel and claims that he can take photos of her and she can launch a career as a model. She agrees to accompany him as he drives to an isolated location. In a desert during sunset, Rodney proceeds to photograph Amy, then ambushes her. In 1971 New York City, Charlie is a flight attendant moving into a new apartment. She sees Rodney taking photos across the street and asks him to help her move furniture into her home. After helping her, Rodney assaults and kills Charlie.

In 1978 Los Angeles, Sheryl Bradshaw is a struggling actress going on auditions. Her agent Helen coaxes her to appear as a contestant on the TV show The Dating Game, telling her it might lead to her big break. Sheryl thinks going on the show is beneath her, but her friend Terry reasons it is a good opportunity for the workaholic Sheryl to meet potential suitors. She shows up at the studio to tape the episode and is prepped to go on camera. The show goes live and the three bachelors, who are hidden from Sheryl's view behind a partition, are displayed to the camera. Bachelor #3 is revealed to be Rodney.

Laura, a member of the audience, recognizes Rodney as the man she saw with her friend Alison, who was later found murdered at the beach. Uncomfortable, she goes to her car and tells her boyfriend Ken her suspicions about Bachelor #3, but he dismisses her concerns, reassuring her she could be mistaken and that the contestants are likely vetted by producers. She goes to the security guard on the show and asks if she can speak to a producer, but he falsely directs her to the janitor instead.

As the show goes on, Sheryl decides to go off-script because she feels the written questions she is supposed to ask the bachelors are sexist and insulting. Rodney is able to make a better impression than the other two bachelors, and he ends up winning the "date", with the prize being tickets to visit Carmel with Sheryl.

After the taping, Rodney and Sheryl go out for drinks. He tries to ingratiate himself to her by showing familiarity with the plays she talks about, but when she playfully teases him, his mood changes quickly and he becomes threatening. When Sheryl walks back to her car at the studio, Rodney insists on walking with her. He asks for her number but realizes it is fake. When he threateningly whispers at her, Sheryl anxiously races to get inside her car and is nearly attacked by Rodney in the deserted parking lot. At this point, however, a group of people exit the studio, Rodney walks away, and she escapes. The next day, Laura reports Rodney's appearance to the police but is dismissed when she cannot name him.

Later, in 1979 San Gabriel, a bound, bloodied, partially nude Amy wakes up in the desert next to Rodney. Rodney is crying, and Amy acts as if she is embarrassed by the situation to get him to trust her. She convinces him to remove her restraints and go back to his place. When they stop at a gas station, she flees. The police arrive and arrest Rodney.

A postscript states that after Rodney's arrest, he was released on bail while awaiting trial despite many testimonies, after which he murdered a woman and a young girl. He was rearrested in 1979. In 2010, he had a chance at acquittal, but the runaway, now an adult, testified against him. The postscript states that Rodney's true number of victims may be as high as 130. Some time after her Dating Game appearance, Sheryl left California to live a private life and raise a family. Rodney died in prison.

In December 2017, Ian MacAllister McDonald's screenplay Rodney and Sheryl was featured on the Black List, an annual survey of the most popular scripts yet to be produced.^[4] In May 2021, Netflix announced it had bought a package around McDonald's script with Chloe Okuno on board as director and Anna Kendrick attached to star.^[5] In April 2022, with Netflix no longer attached, the film was sold at the Cannes Film Festival.^[6] Kendrick was now on board as director and producer, as well as appearing as Sheryl Bradshaw, and the working title of the project became The Dating Game.^[7][8] Kendrick donated her pay to Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network and the National Center for Victims of Crime to not feel she was profitting over sexual violence victims.^[9] In December 2022, a producer sued another producer for alleged fraud and breach of contract; The Dating Game was one of three films mentioned in the lawsuit.^[10]

Principal photography took place in Vancouver with Zach Kuperstein as cinematographer from October to December 2022.^[11][12]

Woman of the Hour premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2023, with Kendrick and the cast unable to attend due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike.^[1][13] Shortly after, Netflix, which was to distribute the film worldwide early in its development, reacquired distribution rights to the United States as well as some international territories for $11 million.^[14][15] The film was released on the streamer on October 18, 2024.^[16]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 91% of 162 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The website's consensus reads: "Deftly directed by star Anna Kendrick, Woman of the Hour uses an incredible true story as the foundation for a powerful examination of the intersection between systemic misogyny and violence."^[17] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 74 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.^[18]

Marya E. Gates of RogerEbert.com rated the film 4 out of 4 stars, praising Kendrick's "typically intelligent and spunky performance" as Sheryl, and her "keen curiosity about the power of the gaze, both cinematic and human" as the film's director.^[19] The Observer's Wendy Ide gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, calling it a "fine directorial debut". She praises Kendrick's ability to capture period details that extend beyond aesthetics and fashion, and highlights her exploration of the deeply rooted sexism in the entertainment industry and broader culture of the era.^[20] Benjamin Lee of The Guardian rated the film 4 out of 5 stars, calling it a "fascinating and frightening stranger-than-fiction tale" and noting its unusual choice for Kendrick’s directorial debut. He acknowledges the script's bluntness at times but appreciates its ability to create a convincingly discomfiting world where misogyny is prevalent. Lee highlights Kendrick's balance in depicting Alcala’s violence while humanizing his victims, allowing the audience to understand the brutality without explicit imagery while maintaining shock value. He also points out that the film includes moments of dark comedy that effectively highlight the absurdity of the situation but can sometimes feel discordant and too modern for the context.^[21]

Writing for Vulture, Bilge Ebiri critiques the film, noting that it is less compelling than expected. He states that while structuring the film around The Dating Game provides an intriguing thematic angle, it leads to a dry and predictable narrative, lacking cohesion and depth in exploring both protagonists. He concludes his review by stating that the film ultimately feels "a bit too careful: composed but also more than a little academic," and that it "winds up existing mostly as a series of well-staged scenes all wrapped up in a bow that tells us the world is not safe out there" without offering significant new insight.^[22] The New York Times's Alissa Wilkinson praises the "competently handled" directorial debut's smooth storytelling as well as Kendrick’s performance. She notes that while the film's drama is both effective and infuriating, it becomes overly "self-consciously illustrative" midway through, with characters feeling more like archetypes than fully realized individuals. Wilkinson concludes her review by affirming that the film is still worth watching and highlighting its avoidance of any fascination with Alcala, who is presented solely as a perpetrator rather than as an object of psychological interest.^[23]

Woman of the Hour is based on the true story of serial killer Rodney Alcala. It has been described as "adjacent to true crime" but "fictionalized enough to qualify as a straightforward drama."^[23]

Woman of the Hour explores the entrenched sexism within the entertainment industry and broader culture of the era.^[20] It critiques the societal structures that enabled Alcala, emphasizing how seemingly innocuous sexism and misogyny normalize violence against women, potentially leading to escalated harm. Marya E. Gates of RogerEbert.com notes that the film's visual language could be seen as a critique of true crime films, "which often seem to revel in recreating this violence.^[3]" The film also examines how women are frequently compelled to perform charm and compliance to navigate perilous situations.^[20]

In her review of the film, Alison Wilkison of The New York Times references a frequently cited quotation, often paraphrased from Margaret Atwood, which posits that "men are afraid women will laugh at them, while women are afraid men will murder them." She asserts that Woman of the Hour embodies this sentiment, presenting it as "this maxim in the form of a feature-length movie."^[23]

• Woman of the Hour at IMDb