Director: Anna Kendrick
Writer: Ian McDonald
Starring: Anna Kendrick, Daniel Zovatto, Tony Hale
Hello and welcome back to another week here at Mindless Movie Reviews. As October rolls along, we make a return to the spooky stuff after a little hiatus last week for “Saturday Night”, which you can read here. You can say this isn’t a Halloween movie, but I say in return, is there anything scarier than a real-life story like this? So, if you are brave enough to go on, know that spoilers are ahead. For everyone else, you can head back to my homepage (here) to check out what else I have to offer.
Ok, so “Woman of the Hour” is Kendrick’s directorial debut where she also stars as Sheryl, a woman who is struggling to get an acting gig and is at the end of her rope. Fed up with people not taking her seriously and male casting agents asking her about doing nude scenes, she eventually gets an offer from her agent for The Dating Game with host Ed (Hale). Since this is right where the story starts to intensify, let me go back (the same way the movie did) and set this up a little bit.
At first, the film jumps around to different times a bit (1978, 1979, 1971, etc.) until you realize what is going on. During this first part, the story is mostly focused on a guy named Rodney (Zovatto) and his charming ability to pick up young women. He finds just the right target, poses as a photographer, and then talks his way into them being photographed by him somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. By the time the poor girls realize what is going on, it’s too late and they are helpless to stop him.
After several scenes of this, the story focuses back to Sheryl and her time on the Dating Game. Rodney, the same guy who senselessly murdered all those ladies is actually one of the Bachelors (#3 to be precise). Once again his charms are winning the day as his answers are far and away better than the other two contestants. As I watched this unfold, it kept popping in my head how this was a true story and how Rodney had the balls to go on national TV to “win” his next victim on a television program.
A side plot of this movie was going on in conjunction with the main story. Another young lady named Laura (Nicolette Robinson) was attending a live viewing of the Dating Game when she has a panic attack after seeing Rodney onstage. A flashback shows that a good friend of hers had met him at some point (no timeframe was given… unless I missed it) and she ended up dead. Laura is pretty certain that he is the same man and after a fight with her boyfriend/husband, she tries to talk to a producer to let them know who that guy really is.
As Laura’s attempts fail, Sheryl chooses Bachelor #3 to end the game as they both win a trip to California. This is where the edge-of-your-seat thriller starts. They go on an impromptu date where she slowly starts to realize that this guy isn’t what he seems. As he gets creepier and more forward with her, she tries to get away and is saved only by the grace of people leaving the studio at that exact moment. I really don’t want to think about what might have happened to her if they hadn’t. I also wonder if they know they inadvertently saved someone’s life.
As Sheryl gets away (and goes on to have a great life somewhere else), Laura tries again to tell the police what she knows. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to want to listen and she walks away in anger. This means, he is still on the loose and he eventually finds Amy (Autumn Best) and does his normal act on her. Like the others, she falls for it, but he doesn’t kill her and instead when she catches him crying, she acts like it was her fault and tells him not to say a word to anyone. When they stop for gas on the way home, she makes a run for it while he is in the bathroom.
Thankfully, this time he was caught for good and eventually died in prison for what he did to those poor ladies. This was quite the haunting tale to watch unfold and even more so when you keep reminding yourself that this actually happened… or at least a version of this. No fun joke or silly Halloween comment this week. Just a message to say this was a somber 1hr 35m movie that really makes you think.
Kudos to Kendrick on the Directing, but the acting could have been better across the board. I give this a 6 out of 10.
Join me next week for some more mindless movie reviews, I may grace you with a fun Halloween list.
