In Woman of the Hour, compliments are weaponized. More specifically, they are the bear traps set by serial killer Robert Alcala to ensnare vulnerable women. The opening scene, set in the deserted Wyoming wild, shows Robert taking photographs of a female nomad escaping the sour aftermath of a relationship. As she starts to tear up, Robert (played by Daniel Zovatto) lowers his camera, steadies his gaze at the woman’s eyes, and says, “You’re beautiful.” Soon after, he strangles the woman, resuscitates her, and re-commences an off-screen assault.
Despite men who believe they Mean Well and will argue otherwise, the context of appropriate compliments hasn’t narrowed over the years. Instead, it has been exposed and explained (and re-explained) by numerous voices who encounter unwarranted attention in the workplace or on the streets — places where compliments are used as bargaining chips, unrequited IOUs to be later exchanged for unwanted favors, or snarling flashes of authority. WOTH, which is centered around a 1979 episode of The Dating Game in which Robert appears as a contestant, explores not only the Nice Guy tactics to the extreme, but the various levels of male culpability that permits the unsafe inhabitation for women.
Anna Kendrick, placing a feather in her hat as first-time director after Chloe Okuno (of Watcher, a film with a similar premise) left the project, stars as Sheryl, an aspiring actress in Hollywood who takes the gig of the show’s episodic bachelorette (and is also based off the real-life Cheryl). After a few encounters with openly misogynistic casting agents, a neighbor with clumsy intentions, and the sleezy “smile!” advice from the host Ed (Tony Hale), Sheryl is hesitant about subjecting herself to faceless men and the camera. But like other stars that have gone on before her, Sheryl agrees to her agent’s pleading. The concurrent side story is Robert’s life as he balances his job at the LA Times and his criminal activities pursuing lonely people. While Sheryl’s story and career is stagnant, we see Robert’s life skipping around in different locations. By the time he gets on the show, we get the feeling that Robert is both on the prowl and from evasion.
Why would Robert go on the show if he’s presumed to be wanted? There is not an overlay of psychiatric exposition or news alerts of his killings. It’s clear that Robert is of narcissistic delusion (well, “clear” coming from armchair psychology) that this is all a game. He gets into a live kerfuffle with another contestant, who had been outwardly sexist in his answers, by embarrassing him with chivalrous answers. Off-camera, Robert says that they could resolve their problems after the episode and shares his address to the contestant on a card. When the contestant flips over the card, it’s a picture of a victim tied up. “It’s just a joke,” Robert says with a glint in his eye. It’s not enough to get what he wants; Robert almost wants to let everyone know what an idiot they are for missing the truth hidden in plain sight.
Conventionally, this kind of story is interesting because it expounds on an event that can be easily accessed and proven to be true on YouTube. It also certainly slides in easily with the Netflix crowds captivated by Ryan Murphy murder productions and grim documentaries with mugshots for title posters. But the hardest thing to let go about WOTH is how it’s less about the woman of the hour (who, by all intents, is Sheryl) and pretty much starts and ends with Robert. We spend more time about his murders, his sensitive spots, and the misfortune execution of showing redeemable vulnerability (not that it happens) that it feels the film is split between empathetic treatment for these women and meeting the quota for the obscene.
Do I think the movie positions Robert as the victim? Absolutely not; the film makes it clear why he’s able to get away with an alleged body count of 130 victims. A secondary character in the episode’s live audience, played by Nicolette Robinson, recognizes Robert as the stranger she and her friend met prior to her friend’s unexplained murder. Unfortunately, her boyfriend and the studio security takes her accusations seriously. Are you sure? they would say. As if it was a common occurrence that the character usually pointed the homicide-finger a lot or forgot their glasses at home.
A more interesting approach would be to stick it to the title: limit it to Sheryl’s POV, where we have already seen her experiences at the beginning of the show, and directly see if we could pick up on Robert’s exhibiting signs (where, I believe, the trick would be is that we can’t). Kendrick can usually subdue her typecast spunk for these kinds of thrillers and does well with Zovatto’s switch between charm and creep. There are certain moments, camera switches, and shots that feel like they had been running in Kendrick’s mind for a while, which works beneficially between a veteran actress who can do this role in her sleep and first-time screenwriter Ian McDonald, who has had this script in the wings since 2017.
We are in the obsessive era of filling in the colors of evil. Even at a supposed safe space with “good intentions”, this kind of piece can be performed irresponsibly (let’s revisit Ryan Murphy once again). I don’t think WOTH is close to perfect, but it probably should be the frontrunner over the subsequent docuseries to come. And a good lesson: while it is situational, a compliment that sounds innocuous to a man may have been used as a weapon against a woman.
Woman of the Hour
2023
dir. Anna Kendrick
95 mins
Streaming on Netflix beginning Friday, 10/18
