Woman of the Hour (Anna Kendrick, 2024)

[therewillbeblus]

Woman of the Hour: Anna Kendrick demonstrates promise behind the camera, but unfortunately this film is too jumbled in its focus, while simultaneously heavy-handed, to be as striking as it wants to be. A lean feminist Zodiac grasps at attempts for narrative stability with heartfelt stories of two 'would-be' victims, but the pivots too often, making its main character the pathetic nature of the killer. This is certainly a point, but it threats to be the point and doesn't make for a compelling picture. Kendrick seems to want to both deprive the killer of his humanity - by grazing at his trauma/mental illness and nullifying them in the face of his actions - and also pitch her focus squarely on his 'character' to avoid victim fetishization. The approach doesn't work - it's too brief for one goal and too long for another.

[Mr Sausage]

I liked that the movie foregrounded the humanity of the victims, giving each a chance to express themselves, share their fears and hopes, while also denying the killer the sympathy, aggrandizement, or morbid interest that thrillers normally afford such people. It's a welcome reversal, to make the killer the least interesting person, and to show how tenuous his charisma is while making the victims the interesting people on screen. I disagree that the killer's pathetic nature is the biggest character. It certainly defines him, but even in his sections the teenage runaway was a more memorable character. Mostly the film works hard to make its killer unalluring, and it's successful. It's not Alcala you end up wanting to learn more about.

I didn't find the movie jumbled, because it tells the same story across each time section: each of Alcala's victimizations is paired with a smaller yet analogous victimization that Kendrick endures to build a general portrait of systemic misogyny. It's heavy handed and wears its feminist ideology openly, but it's not unfocused. The organizing principle is more thematic than narrative, with each section telling something like the same story. Which is smart, because despite the sensational nature of the real life events, there's no way to make a compelling traditional story out of them without inventing heavily. The movie chooses to stick mostly to the facts, but set them alongside each other to draw parallels rather than fit them into a traditional story structure.

A thudding film, but one that does things no other film of its genre does, and that makes it novel.

[therewillbeblus]

I didn't find the movie jumbled, because it tells the same story across each time section: each of Alcala's victimizations is paired with a smaller yet analogous victimization that Kendrick endures to build a general portrait of systemic misogyny.

Interesting observation, you've made me appreciate the film more

[brundlefly]

Woman of the Hour: Anna Kendrick demonstrates promise behind the camera, but unfortunately this film is too jumbled in its focus, while simultaneously heavy-handed, to be as striking as it wants to be. A lean feminist Zodiac grasps at attempts for narrative stability with heartfelt stories of two 'would-be' victims, but the pivots too often, making its main character the pathetic nature of the killer. This is certainly a point, but it threats to be the point and doesn't make for a compelling picture. Kendrick seems to want to both deprive the killer of his humanity - by grazing at his trauma/mental illness and nullifying them in the face of his actions - and also pitch her focus squarely on his 'character' to avoid victim fetishization. The approach doesn't work - it's too brief for one goal and too long for another.

Agreed. I almost admire the attempt to contain the sprawl of the killer's crimes through the people chosen (though the audience member never works, even as a device to illustrate other frustrations), but it's strange to me that while making the case that this is a world that enables predatory behavior the film minimizes the easy metaphor the Dating Game hook provides. Really thought they'd expand that segment into something more tense and confrontational in-studio (as they were already semi-fictionalizing the appearance). And though it's there throughout, and key in the last segment, I thought the opportunity to center on an aspiring actress would go harder on the performance aspects between men/women predator/target. Scene partners. All the time spent elsewhere is justified in one way or another, it always feels like an invested and considered film. But 100% agree with you that even as the film grants each woman space for a life and Kendrick's character an arc (though it still feels like a switch is flipped during the show), and displays a wide range of negative male behavior, the throughline and the fascination has to be with the killer. Which is clearly not the point.

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Especially as the bulk of the movie is weighted on survivors.

The CPR moment especially made me want to know more about him. And there is (unfortunately?) a lot of fascinating material. He worked in the same Blue Cross/Blue Shield office, and at the same time, as a totally different serial killer! They were completely unaware of each others' presence! What a world.

[brundlefly]

I liked that the movie foregrounded the humanity of the victims, giving each a chance to express themselves, share their fears and hopes, while also denying the killer the sympathy, aggrandizement, or morbid interest that thrillers normally afford such people. It's a welcome reversal, to make the killer the least interesting person, and to show how tenuous his charisma is while making the victims the interesting people on screen. I disagree that the killer's pathetic nature is the biggest character. It certainly defines him, but even in his sections the teenage runaway was a more memorable character. Mostly the film works hard to make its killer unalluring, and it's successful. It's not Alcala you end up wanting to learn more about.

Unalluring, but still holding center for me. The strength of the women I thought came in that you are only privy to a glimpse of their lives; their bigger pictures don't belong in one built around his activities. While I wasn't captivated by Zovatto, there's just so many more facets allowed to his manipulations. I'd argue letting extraneous factoids in (like the book he's showing around the newspaper office) encourages morbid curiosity. Or maybe I'm just more morbidly curious!

I didn't find the movie jumbled, because it tells the same story across each time section: each of Alcala's victimizations is paired with a smaller yet analogous victimization that Kendrick endures to build a general portrait of systemic misogyny. It's heavy handed and wears its feminist ideology openly, but it's not unfocused. The organizing principle is more thematic than narrative, with each section telling something like the same story. Which is smart, because despite the sensational nature of the real life events, there's no way to make a compelling traditional story out of them without inventing heavily. The movie chooses to stick mostly to the facts, but set them alongside each other to draw parallels rather than fit them into a traditional story structure.

Agree with you on the structure, for me it had strong flow and continuity, and its sorest thumb (again, that audience member) was initially an attempt to make the killer's past present in the studio.

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Was especially excited Kendrick's character disappeared (safely) with another twenty minutes to go. Like, reverse-Psycho. Though the preponderance of follow-up text at the end was wearying.

[therewillbeblus]

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I do think it's a credit to Kendrick that she doesn't allot her character a stronger arc, and instead scales the reaction size to the severity of the killer's activity, keeping in mind period-specific norms. It would be a lot easier to give herself a more triumphant action towards the killer - but instead she reserves that triumph for breaking the rules on the show, and then cleverly allows an unfinished victim's arc to become a future-oriented triumph.

[Mr Sausage]

For sure, serial killers are morbidly fascinating, and you can see that all through our popular culture. But the movie makes a satirical point of undermining what we tend to find alluring, of refusing to construct an alluring apex predator cooly in control in favour of a portrait of a lonely, pathetic man whose genuine but limited charisma cannot hide his nature from people for long, and whose violence comes out of his own powerlessness. His psychopathy may be fascinating, and he is the figure that brings all the story events together, but he is not interesting in and of himself. He’s shallow and all too easily identifiable. The tragedy is everyone could see, but no one did anything about it. He’s a stand in for systemic misogyny. And we find bits of his predatoriness in many of the other male characters.

[The Curious Sofa]

It was bland and couldn't help overplaying its hand. All the men are monsters, sleazeballs or dumbasses and our heroine gets her little moment of rebellion where she proves her intellectual superiority over the male contestants by going off script, but Opening Night this ain't. This is a movie that always tells you what to feel and think. One of the worst aspects of sexist societies is that women are socialised to participate in their oppression, and this is reflected in the real segment of this Dating Game episode, where Cheryl Bradshaw doesn't subvert the game, but plays along with all the tawdry innuendo. Paradoxically, the real Alcala comes off worse, coming across weird and sleazy, and the other two contestants come off a little better as they all stick to the script. I suppose the film has to give the fictional Sheryl Bradshaw a reason to pick him, but that is sanding off the edges. It's another period piece that make history "relatable" to modern sensibilities.

Kendrick's direction is functional at best, the film feels flat, it has that televisual Netflix look, and is yet another 70s period piece where the era is mainly conveyed through bad wigs. I can't help but think that the film would have been more interesting if original director Chole Okuno had stayed on. A few years ago she made the atmospheric woman-in-peril thriller Watcher, which had more style and personality.

As for serial killer movies that focus on the female perspective, I'm a big fan of Adam Wingard's A Horrible Way to Die, about the ex-girlfriend of a serial killer (played by the always great Amy Seimetz) who was unaware of his crimes and tries to put her life back together after he goes to prison.