'Woman of the Hour' recognizes the threat
Netflix
What if the dating game sequence in “Mallrats” somehow existed in the timeline of “Zodiac”?
It’s a seemingly ridiculous question with a horrifying reality: That there really was a serial killer in the late ‘70s who appeared as one of the bachelors on “The Dating Game.” This awful truth might seem an unlikely fit for the directorial debut of star Anna Kendrick, and perhaps there’s a case to be made that “Woman of the Hour” sparks most clearly when “Dating Game” contestant Sheryl (Kendrick), previously told to laugh a lot and avoid intimidating the suitors during the show, instead begins asking questions about physics and ethics and completely, hilariously stumping everyone. Well, except Rodney (Daniel Zovatto), who several sequences already have identified as a rapist and murderer that also happens to be, at least at first, kinda charming in conversation.
Without a doubt, Kendrick succeeds at capturing menace. “Woman of the Hour” identifies countless moments of women put on the defensive, or men either posing or ignoring a danger, and the rage and fear that results. Numerous sequences have real tension, showing that Kendrick doesn’t just know how to stage rapid-fire snark but slow-building dread. That said, the film is often more successful as message than as story, with a “Dating Game” audience member’s attempt to alert a producer while the show is going on feeling particularly forced and improbable. There also isn’t exactly a good sense of how Rodney keeps getting away with this, or any insights about why it’s often so hard to get people in power to hear and follow up on reports of violence against women.
Yet even if the points found in “Woman of the Hour” feel familiar it doesn’t make them any less relevant, and there’s no denying a political throughline of a film, released a couple weeks before an election in which one of the candidates has been found guilty of rape and accused of sexual misconduct or assault by numerous others, practically screaming for appropriate attention to be paid to a person about whom an alarm has been sounded. And the true story of what happens when law enforcement listens to women who speak up.
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