Woman of the Hour (Netflix)

[chediavolo]

Has anyone watched this? I thought it was lacking in something. Maybe more details on the serial killers younger life. It was definitely infuriating. How no one listened to any of the victims, and this guy was the loose to kill again.

I hope this topic isn’t already somewhere else because I have the hardest time with this forum in the last few years since it changed. I cannot find anything anymore.

[Lsk02]

I read an interview with Anna about some of her directing choices. She really wanted the focus to be on his victims, and the survivor, instead of on why he may have become a serial killer. She wanted it to be different in that way from a lot of other true crime stuff. 

[Shannon L.]

I've watched it.

There wasn't anything complex about the movie, yet Anna managed to make it terrifying. Which, of course, it was in real life, but to transfer that to screen is a different story. I found myself covering my eyes a couple of times and the tension was palpable throughout the movie. She was also able to capture the horror of what happened to these women without getting too graphic. The guy playing Rodney was great at shifting from charming, to creepy, to terrifying, with just a facial expression. The ending seemed to a bit Hollywood for me, so I looked it up and it was mostly true. It really is an unbelievable story.

Overall, I'd say it was a strong directorial debut for Anna Kendrick.

[Spartan Girl]

18 hours ago, Lsk02 said:

I read an interview with Anna about some of her directing choices. She really wanted the focus to be on his victims, and the survivor, instead of on why he may have become a serial killer. She wanted it to be different in that way from a lot of other true crime stuff. 

And I respect the hell out of that.

I cheered when the last girl managed to escape and got him arrested but was PISSED when the postscript revealed they let him go AGAIN and he went on to kill more, including a child before they got him for good.

Cheryl was so damn lucky. 

[Bastet]

I would have liked to see a movie about the teenage runaway, who so brilliantly played him to escape, and who later as an adult turned up at sentencing and put the nail in his coffin.

But the story of Cheryl was a good one, too.  I'd never seen Kendrick in anything but the commercials in which she plays herself, and there were times I didn't think she was much of an actor, but for the most part I thought she came across very natural.  With all the people pleasing she's conditioned to do as a woman, and especially as an aspiring actor, and the forced smiles and laughter that resulted -- she really nailed that stuff.

I like the make-up artist on the dating show telling her all the women are asking the same underlying question, "Which one of you isn't going to hurt me?", and she just did it the most directly.  I loved her changing the script, and the host and other two bachelors not knowing what the hell just hit them.

Kendrick also did a good job when Cheryl realized in the bar that this guy is not what he seemed and she needs to get away from him.  Love her signal to the female server, and that woman immediately running with it and telling him he missed last call.  That scene in the parking lot, with him getting closer and closer, was incredibly well directed because it was scary as hell.

I appreciate that it was clear these women were subjected to brutal sexual violence, but filmed in a way that did not feel sensationalized.

The actor playing Laura, the woman attending the taping who realizes he's the guy who raped and murdered her friend, did a fantastic job.  With Laura's panic, with her anger at her boyfriend's response, with her devastation that she's been lied to about the producer coming to hear her, with her guilt at leaving her friend alone with him, and with her "Do your fucking job!" rage at the police station.

[tennisgurl]

I have always liked Anna Kendrick so of course I was excited to see her directorial debut, and I think that she did a great job as both director and star. I really like that she told this serial killer story from the perspective of victims, almost victims, and people who were affected by the murders instead of the killer, we have enough movies about serial killers and their origins and crimes, I like that we got a different perspective with this. 

All of the acting was great, the guy playing Rodney did a great job at being both creepy and charming, I can totally see why women were still attracted to him and would feel happy to go off with him, especially in a time before we knew so much about serial killers, but he could flip the creepy switch so quickly. Anna was a great lead and the girl who played the runaway is clearly a star in the making. 

Even the minor characters were all really well cast, like the makeup lady and the smug asshole host, SO MUCH 70s happening. I also appreciate that the sexist sleazy guy gave Cheryl a warning after Rodney creeped him out, if nothing else there is certainly a difference between being an asshole and being an actual rapist and killer. 

The whole story is one of those "so crazy it must be true" sort of stories, the runaway tricking Rodney into not killing her and running away really did happen and that is how he was eventually caught, and of course the actual serial killer ending up on The Dating Game and being the chosen bachelor. Its wild how many of these guys get caught by just random people putting things together and thinking fast. 

[Madding crowd]

I thought Cheryl came off as thinking she was better than everyone else. The questions on The Dating Game were meant to be light entertainment, not to humiliate the contestants. Of course I wouldn’t go on a show to ask things like “what flavor of ice cream would you be” but that was the way the show worked. I thought the woman who recognized Rodney at the taping and the runaway girl did a terrific job.

[DoctorAtomic]

I think the movie needed a proper coda, and coming back to testify at the trial to 'put the nail in the coffin' would have stuck the landing. Or after the arrest, they could have flash forwarded to him killing one of the other victims, so we could see that the justice system failed. Again. 

I appreciate not getting into the origin story of why Rodney became a serial killer because it's probably a lame as all the rest of them, but I think we could have used some more scenes, for example, Laura's friend at the beach could have been a little more there. 

Rodney reminded me a little of Ted Bundy; charismatic, same victims. 

I don't quite get why he didn't kill the runaway though, if he killed all the rest. Again, a few more minutes there would have helped. They cut to her beaten up and tied up, but he's lying there crying. I'm assuming he tried to rape her and she faked being into it? I could buy that because she was smart enough to figure out his dad walked out on him, but it was a bit abstracted. 

On 11/11/2024 at 3:48 PM, Madding crowd said:

I thought Cheryl came off as thinking she was better than everyone else. The questions on The Dating Game were meant to be light entertainment, not to humiliate the contestants.

I think we're kind of in an era when there's period movies that they inherently, inadvertently, add too much modernism. Yes, the questions were stupid, and I can buy Cheryl going off script with the urging from the make up artist. Cheryl is a woman living in 1978 though. 'What are girls for' is a good question. I think she was a touch condescending with the other questions. The first guy was just kind of there and didn't deserve the scorn. I liked that in the end he was a medical intern who liked golf. So, maybe not that bad of a guy after all. 

Talking about modernism, I think the most glaring scene that would still hold up in 2024 is the boyfriend in the car with Laura. 'How sure are you?' That's fair. They were sitting up in the back, and the guy did look like a run of the mill 70s guy. '90%' 'So not totally sure.' Dude. 

The other thing I liked is that Rodney just appeared out of nowhere like a wraith. Was he outside the woman's apartment already? Or just happened to be across the street? I noticed that the dude from the newsroom was in the photo album, so I was wondering if he killed him too. 

Being that this is an actual story though, it was well worth the watch.