TIFF 2023: Woman of the Hour Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Woman of the Hour is the directorial debut of Anna Kendrick where she also stars as a woman named Cheryl who unwittingly ended up winning a date with a notorious serial killer, Rodney Alcara, following an appearance on “The Dating Game”. Not enough subject matter to fit within its 90+ minute running time, the story shares its focus with Rodney himself (Zovatto) as he preyed on his female victims over several years prior and following his appearance on the dating game show until he was finally caught. Meanwhile, somewhat connecting both side of the story was Laura (Nicolette Robinson), a woman in the audience during the taping of Cheryl and Rodney’s Dating Game episode who happened to recognize the latter from her past.

At the end of the day, Woman of the Hour is a structural mess. While Kendrick does a good job behind the camera, the direction suggests a film that felt uncertain of itself. The game show sequence was easily the best part. While a bit on the nose at times, it was nonetheless riveting, paired with the dramatic irony of Cheryl choosing Rodney over two other men. While riveting, these scenes are intercut with flashbacks of his abductions and murders despite the fact that only one plays a part in the story. However, those scenes feel like they only exist because the film needed to end somewhere. The majority of these scenes feel trivial and merely offer Rodney killing various women in a theatrical way while contributing nothing to the overall narrative. Gratuitously shocking, they eventually start to become off-putting. When it comes to Laura, her purpose appeared simply to underline some of the film’s more obvious themes if audiences didn’t understand them already.

Another issue was how the film just didn’t feel natural as its scenes were written and directed in a way that felt like watching a film rather than something one can be immersed in. A big contributor in that was its score. Blaring throughout, it doesn’t give individual scenes time to breathe with the exception of a few near the end of the film where it is used to effectively build tension. A stark contrast from the everything that preceded, these closing scenes were so chilling, it seemed as if they were helmed by a different director and writer.

In the end, this why although Woman of the Hour misses the mark, Anna Kendrick shows plenty of promise as a director and looks to have a strong filmography ahead of her.

still courtesy of VVS Films

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Brett Schutt

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