It’s been a year since I first saw Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut, Woman of the Hour, at its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, and I’m still haunted by the film. yeah. The film, written by Ian McDonald, is inspired by the true story of serial rapist and murderer Rodney Alcala, who appeared on The Dating Game in 1978. Not only does Kendrick deliver typical intelligence and spunk as the role of Cheryl, an aspiring actress and contestant matched with him on that fateful day, but as a director, she has the power to hold both the film’s and the human gaze. shows a strong curiosity about the power of
Alcala tells all of his victims, most of them women from the margins of society, “You are beautiful.” he is a photographer. He knows the power of his gaze and the camera. Kendrick’s film begins with a 1977 murder victim. We hear her voice off-screen before we see her. Her first images are captured within Alcala’s lens. “Forget there’s a camera here,” he tells her. Kendrick then focuses his lens on Alcala’s face. Actor Daniel Zovatto’s eyes, masquerading as open pools of empathy, are the tools he uses to lull women into a false sense of security. An overwhelming brutality assaults his eyes as he shifts into Predator mode. Kendrick holds his face and allows the changes to occur before our eyes, placing us directly in the psyche of his victims.
Later in the movie, Alcala and Cheryl go out drinking. The date doesn’t go well. Cheryl’s laughter changed the seemingly attractive single man. In recovery mode, she says she doesn’t date much. He points out the irony of her appearing on a dating show. “My agent said he would check me out,” she says. “Did you feel seen?” he asks. The camera shows both in close-up, capturing the conversation as a duel. “I felt seen,” she admits. “How do you feel now?” he presses. “It’s okay,” she says, though clearly uncomfortable. “Okay,” he replied mockingly. There’s a menacing pause. And he continues: “Most people don’t like to be seen. They’re afraid. They have to feel good about themselves. They have to stop performing.”
All of the women in Kendrick’s films have moments where they have to play the “nice guy” to get through the situation. Cheryl has to navigate this kind of performance many times in the movie. For example, game show host Ed Burke (Tony Hale, played with a perfect understatement of vulgarity) walks into Cheryl’s dressing room, spews a ton of casual misogyny and racism, and then… Consider the moment when you told Cheryl not to scare the single people with her intelligence. He told her that she should just smile and laugh, just as she did in another scene where two men attending a casting call openly discuss her physical worth right in front of her. I told her. Just like when she turns down the invitation of her neighbor, aspiring actor Terry (Pete Holmes), over drinks. Like Amy (Autumn Best, Firecracker), a teenage runaway whose escape from Alcala ultimately leads to his arrest, she uses smiles and laughter to survive a violent encounter with him.
When the game show ends, Cheryl asks if they went too far in changing the question and effectively turned the whole misogyny thing upside down. Her makeup lady assures her that’s not the case. “No matter what words they use, the underlying question remains the same,” she argues. “What’s your question?” Cheryl asks. “Who among you will hurt me?” the woman replies. This question remains at the heart of Kendrick’s films, as it does for most women navigating life in a world without protection from male violence. “I knew he was dangerous, but damn it, everyone is dangerous,” one of the victims said, snapping a photo minutes before Alcala’s ex-partner violently murdered him. Ta.
The film’s examination of the power of being seen, and especially of being understood through the act of being seen, is most effective in its three mirror-image cases. During the filming of the game show, when Alcala is revealed to be one of the bachelorettes, a woman named Laura (played in a nerve-wracking role by Nicolette Robinson) has a visceral reaction. shows. She is convinced that he is the man who killed her friend in Malibu the year before. As she rushed out of the studio, she knocked over the monitor. During the commotion, the women close their eyes, but Cheryl is unable to receive the message in Laura’s eyes due to the bright light. Later, during his date with Alcala, he tries to order a second drink. Cheryl made eye contact with the cocktail waitress and nodded a frantic “no.” When I get the message, the woman says they’re closing tonight. At the end of the film, Amy, trapped in Alcala’s car, looks into the eyes of a man in a truck who stops at an intersection. Her eyes convey a desperate plea for help, but the man in the truck continues down the road, staring at her.
There is a universal language in the glances exchanged between women, especially when there is a dangerous man present. I don’t know any women who haven’t experienced something like this, but unfortunately, situations like this don’t always lead to rescue. While watching this movie, I was reminded of a night in my 20s when I organized a dinner with an older man I knew from work. He often gave off strange vibes, but I was young and ambitious. I thought I would be protected if I had friends for dinner. However, one by one, my friends started to fall away. They couldn’t understand the message I was communicating through my gaze. I managed to get out of there before dark, but when I finally found myself alone with the man, I went over the edge and never felt more unsafe in my life. Kendrick knows this well, as he uses every cinematic tool at his disposal to express this emotion.
Comparisons to David Fincher’s Zodiac are inevitable, and on the surface level at least that’s fair. Kendrick has created a sophisticated thriller set in the ’70s about a serial killer who goes on a decade-long reign of terror. Fincher’s film is a story about men who spend their lives solving the mystery of who the zodiac signs are and the toll this obsession has taken on their lives. Kendrick’s film uses Alcala to criticize the society that enabled him. This is a story about how society, through seemingly innocuous sexism and misogyny, normalizes violence against women, ultimately paving the way for escalation of violence. This visual language can also be seen as a critique of “Zodiac” and the true crime films it spawned, which often seem to revel in this reenactment of violence.
We get glimpses of Alcala’s brutal attacks, but Kendrick minimizes and obscures them, filming them from a distance or in extreme close-up. She adds tension to these scenes by using ambient noises, birdsong in the wind, the hum of fluorescent lights, and the sounds of city traffic as soundtracks. Before the violence gets too flashy or exploitative, she abruptly cuts the scene to make sure the viewer is aware of their own voyeurism, but she has the power to deny it. Instead, she lingers over daily moments of menace. Men often touch Cheryl’s neck and hair without her permission. How Laura’s boyfriend immediately doubts and questions what she knows to be true. The police officers are fascinated by Alcala and laugh as they let him run away.
In the middle of filming an episode of “The Dating Game,” a makeup artist said to Cheryl, That’s the point. Please say whatever you want to say. ”Wouldn’t it be great if life were this simple and safe?
Currently streaming on Netflix.
