Spoilers think real monsters are scarier than fantastic ones.

Nowadays, women still have to navigate very treacherous waters in the dating game. Go back a few decades and you’d be inclined to believe the human race almost died out. It doesn’t help that the perception of the female gender was poor and ill informed. You’d think that toxicity would have died out in our days, but that’s far from the reality. This makes this feature still relevant in our days.

(Credit: Netflix)

Woman of the Hour (2024) is directed by Anna Kendrick and written by Ian McDonald while based on true events. It’s the 1970’s and aspiring actress Sheryl Bradshaw (Anna Kendrick) has trouble breaking into the movie industry. Looking for exposure, she accepts to go on popular TV show The Dating Game. Unbeknownst to her, one of the bachelors, Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto) is secretly a serial killer that targets single young women.

The film highlights a lot of toxic male traits of the time. Sheryl must endure the not-so-quiet whispers of the casting directors interviewing her for movie roles. Charlie (Kathryn Gallagher), a woman moving into her own apartment, finds her movers have decided to dump all her stuff on the sidewalk while she was in the shower. Amy (Autumn Best) is a teenage runway living on the streets. Rodney shows how easily he can take advantage of their misfortune by pretending to be a caring, insightful and respectful individual while masking a violent murderous intent. In an era of deep rooted sexism towards women, this looks a little too easy for him to do.

The most poignant example here is Laura (Nicolette Robinson), who had a dear friend raped and killed by Rodney and actually caught a glimpse of his face. By coincidence, she is in the audience and becomes distraught at recognizing him as bachelor number three. As much as she tries to get through the proper channels to get someone to listen to her, she gets turned away and dismissed every time.

Eventually, Sheryl gets on The Dating Game to throw pre-scripted questions with a lot of suggestive undertones for the three bachelors to reply with more innuendo. The game escalates when Sheryl, encouraged by the makeup team, decides to go off script and ask some real questions. This leaves the regular bachelors in the dust except for Rodney who knows what Sheryl wants to hear. As a result, he ends up winning the game which spells trouble for Sheryl.

The film highlights not only the sexism in the industry but the allowances that women must compromise to live in a male-dominated society. Sheryl feels pressured into giving in to her neighbor’s Terry (Pete Holmes) advances as she doesn’t know anybody else in town. Charlie enlists Rodney’s help to move her furniture and has to allow him into her place. Amy has nowhere to go when Rodney asks her to pose for a photography contest. When Sheryl agrees to go out for drinks with Rodney she does so more of her fear of confrontation than anything else.

It works rather well. Some of the male performances might look like caricatures of the toxic male until you acknowledge some those stereotypes endure until today. The look and feel of the seventies is kept without the over-the-top musical background and pop culture posters that are so often the recourse of films of the past decades. I appreciated that Sheryl didn’t drive a volkswagen beetle. The performances fit the characters and humanize the victims as you can feel the fear and the risk they take everyday. Kendrick does get a chance to be her witty self for a moment but it advances the plot. As for Zovatto, he’s terrifying in the way his words and his stare communicate his hidden violent intentions.

Highly recommended. There is a slightly dark comedic undertone in the way Sheryl decides to up the ante in the game. That might be considered a tone dissonance but you can see the film autocorrects itself to bring back the tension on the next scene. Very much worth a watch.

That will do for now.