Woman of the Hour (2023)'s comments

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Simon Lavender

Great brief tense film.

Decent debut.
Great acting by the baddie

2 months 1 week ago

Torgo

Promising true crime debut that jars its pacing a little too often with time jumps or changes of focus.

1 month 2 weeks ago

Anna Kendrick's directorial debut, Woman of the Hour, is quite good. She has an eye for the interesting shot, and molds this real-life story into a thematically-consistent running commentary on sexism and misogyny finding their ultimate expression in 1970s Hollywood's intersection with a serial killer, while all the micro-aggressions Cheryl (Kendrick) suffers remain palpably relevant today. Women - whether Cheryl who would "win a date" with the killer on The Dating Game, or others seen in cutaways to the charismatic killer's "career" - aren't just would-be victims in the film, but are also things to be looked at and fondled, never listened to or taken seriously, and our girl is just too smart and self-possessed to take much more of it. Not being too aware of this story, I wasn't sure if Cheryl was a victim or a survivor, and there's a lot of tension in that. I did check out the Dating Game episode afterwards, and the movie's version is mostly fabrication, but pleasant fabrication. It's funny and gives its heroine a chance to shine and get a little revenge on the patriarchy, but also creates a great deal of suspense. The focus on a would-be victim promised by the title is only half-true - we do see a lot of the killer, even if his motivations remain obscure - but it prevents Woman of the Hour from feeling like a bog-standard biopic-type movie, despite falling into some of the tropes. I liked it a lot despite by bias against so-called "true event" films.

1 month 3 weeks ago