As obsessed as I am with the ‘70s, there was no way I wasn’t going to watch Woman of the Hour the night it premiered on Netflix. Serving as the directorial debut for Anna Kendrick (who also stars), the film is based on the chilling true story of a young aspiring actress who meets the match from hell on a dating game show when she is paired with a serial killer named Rodney Alcala (whose goal of going on the show in the first place is to target his next victim). What’s interesting about Woman of the Hour, is that the story is told from a woman’s perspective. There are a lot of twists and turns along the way, which is to be expected with a film centered around a serial killer, but Kendrick is able to strike a balance to create something that is entertaining, while still being sensitive to the delicate subject matter, as you are given the backstory of Alcala’s brutal crimes committed throughout the course of the 1970s.
When it comes to period pieces, I also pay attention to whether the film nails the costuming, set design etc., as I believe it can throw a movie off completely if those details aren’t accurate. Woman of the Hour checks out in that department, as from a visual perspective, it indeed looks like a film that could have come from the ‘70s era. My only issue was with the diction/cadence of the actors: People back in the ‘60s/’70s spoke/enunciated differently, and that difference is very clear when you have familiarity with that time period. Nonetheless, Woman of the Hour is still an interesting movie with a different approach compared to what a lot of filmmakers and studios are currently putting out.
I have long felt that we need less remakes, and more unknown stories being brought to the forefront, so again, kudos to Kendrick for bringing this story that many people (myself included) didn’t know about to life.