Anna Kendrick is taking the title of her latest film to heart: Kendrick truly is the “Woman of the Hour” as she makes her directorial debut with a story about Rodney Alcala, colloquially known as “The Dating Game” serial killer. Kendrick is also executive producing and starring in the feature, which debuted at TIFF.
“Woman of the Hour” centers on aspiring actress Cheryl Bradshaw (Kendrick), a “Dating Game” contestant who chose Alcala (Daniel Zovatto) in 1978.
The official logline reads: “The stranger-than-fiction story of an aspiring actress in 1970s Los Angeles and a serial killer in the midst of a years-long murder spree, whose lives intersect when they’re cast on an episode of ‘The Dating Game.’”
Prior to his series of murders, Alcala served three years in prison for assaulting two underage girls. He would kill five women under the guise of photographing them for The Los Angeles Times, where he worked.
Tony Hale, Nicolette Robinson, Pete Holmes, Autumn Best, Kathryn Gallagher, and Kelley Jakle also star in the film, which Kendrick directed from a script by Ian McDonald.
Roy Lee, Miri Yoon, J.D. Lifshitz, and Raphael Margules produce, with Kendrick, McDonald, Stuart Ford, Zach Garrett, Miguel A. Palos, Jr., Joe Penna, Matthew Helderman, Luke Taylor, Paul Barbeau, Sean Patrick O’Reilly, Andrew Deane, and Stephen Crawford executive producing. The co-producers are Lorelle Lynch, Chris Abernathy, and Tracy Rosenblum.
“I’m so obsessed with the cast,” Kendrick told IndieWire of the film — then tentatively titled “The Dating Game” — in 2023. “I obviously don’t want to say that much. We don’t even have a real title! But I know that everybody that was involved was extremely talented and I’m over the moon about it. I had the time of my life.”
The IndieWire review of the feature credits Kendrick for giving the film a “Hitchcockian” style of suspense.
“Kendrick’s image as an actor isn’t necessarily tied to dark, edgy material, but as a director she shows a talent for staging scenes of Hitchcockian suspense alongside her signature wit,” the review reads. “Amid the heap of disjointed elements lies a pair of knockout bravura sequences, both of which revolve around Cheryl’s appearance on ‘The Dating Game.’ First comes the wit, as Cheryl goes rogue with her on-air questions to spite the show’s chauvinistic host (Tony Hale). Then comes the suspense as Rodney pursues Cheryl through an empty parking lot, following her just close enough to deny his true intentions.”
The review continued, “Kendrick’s evocation of the type of fear a woman feels when a man suddenly shifts from friendly to hostile comes through strongly and clearly, and seems destined to spark conversations about similar events in viewers’ lives on the way out of the theater. Beyond that potent impression, what ‘Woman of the Hour’ is trying to say about gendered violence remains obscure until the very end, when the story of a teenage hitchhiker who escaped Alcala in 1979 gives the movie its thesis statement. ‘It’s OK, baby,’ she says with a smile, bruised and bloody after a brutal attack. She plays along, so she survives. And the game goes on, as it has forever.”
“Woman of the Hour” premieres October 18 on Netflix. Check out the teaser below.
