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This bizarre moment in American history is the crux around which Woman of the Hour revolves. A (mostly fictionalised) thriller flecked with violence, Netflix’s quasi-biopic narrates Alcala’s horrific killing spree, and the sexist society that failed his victims.
In an impressive directorial debut, Anna Kendrick tells Alcala’s story through the eyes of women who crossed his path – including Cheryl, whom Kendrick also portrays. Through Cheryl, she paints a bleak picture of casual misogyny. Sexism leaps out from behind every corner, as subtle as a mallet to the skull: at an audition, she is spoken about like a piece of meat; at home, an overfamiliar neighbour guilts her into sex with him; backstage, a TV host tells her to smile and dumb it down for the men. Woman of the Hour would be guilty of overegging were it not true.
We are similarly never put in the position of having to judge the women who choose to trust Alcala (played here by an excellent Daniel Zovatto), or marvel at their supposed gullibility. Instead, Kendrick aptly conjures the mood of the Seventies – a shimmering haze through which things like hitchhiking and inviting a stranger into your home are completely plausible.
Overall, though, the takeaway from Woman of the Hour is that this is not the story of an individual evil, but mass complicity from a society that allowed Alcala to continue his reign of terror far longer than it should’ve. It reaches an apotheosis with The Dating Game, by which time (in real life) Alcala was already a convicted sex offender. “If this guy did what you’re implying, wouldn’t he be in jail and not on a TV show?” one man in the crowd asks his girlfriend when she recognises Alcala on the show. You’d think, wouldn’t you?
Dir: Anna Kendrick. Starring: Anna Kendrick, Daniel Zovatto, Tony Hale, Nicolette Robinson, Kathryn Gallagher, Autumn Best. 15, 95 mins.
‘Woman of the Hour’ is streaming on Netflix from 18 October
