The true-crime thriller is hard to nail down. If you embellish the truth too much, you undermine the terror of what actually happened. If you stick to reality, you risk losing narrative tension. But every so often we get a true-crime thriller fictionalized just enough that when you research the real story afterward, you’re shocked at how much was pulled from real life. Netflix’s latest crime thriller is exactly this, but with one huge twist. It’s bright, cheery, and floral, but it never lets you forget that as normal as its environment looks, it’s full of terror.
Woman of the Hour is a thriller based on the real-life events surrounding serial murderer Rodney Alcala. In between his brutal murders of dozens of victims, he made an appearance on The Dating Game. Even wilder, he won, but the impression he left on the unlucky bachelorette was less than flattering.
Anna Kendrick, who makes her directorial debut with this Netflix thriller, plays the bachelorette, Cheryl Bradshaw. She’s a struggling actress on the brink of giving up her dream as her auditions fall flat and her one friend (Pete Holmes) makes a pass at her. In a hail-mary moment, she decides to take a “role” in The Dating Game and is thrust into the pink-and-orange world of early reality TV — and the casual misogyny that goes with it.
But that’s only half the story. Woman of the Hour begins by following Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto) and one of his victims, who poses for his camera before being attacked by him. This sets up the story of the movie at large. Cheryl’s brush with danger is interrupted by those who actually suffered Rodney’s wrath.
That’s part of this movie’s genius: it doesn’t center on Cheryl just because she was the one who made it on TV. Each of these victims is the star of their own vignette, which humanizes them while also counterbalancing the necessary attention given to Rodney. Autumn Best is a particular standout as Eve, a teenage runaway who meets Rodney after his Dating Game appearance.
The only real deviation from the truth is the game itself. Halfway through, Cheryl decides to ditch the pre-written questions and ask “deep” questions like, “What’s your theory of special relativity?” and “What are girls for?” It’s a bit distracting from the main plot, but it’s a great device for Rodney to show why his cool demeanor and slightly unsettling charm are enough to win him the trust of his victims.
Cheryl doesn’t have a big heroic moment — she meets Rodney, is creeped out by him, and goes about her day. But stories like that, where women have a gut feeling about him and speak out, only to be ignored, are how Acala was able to do what he did for so long. You come to this movie to watch Cheryl, stuck on national television with a homicidal maniac, but you stay for the other women whose stories don’t get told.
