Woman of the Hour, 2024.

Directed by Anna Kendrick.
Starring Anna Kendrick, Daniel Zovatto, Tony Hale, Nicolette Robinson, Autumn Best, Pete Holmes, Andy Thompson, David Beairsto, Tighe Gill, Kathryn Gallagher, Kelley Jakle, Matt Visser, Jedidiah Goodacre, Dylan Schmid, Rob Morgan, Denalda Williams, Jessie Fraser, Max Lloyd-Jones, Nancy Kerr, James Yi, Jessica Chaffin, Matthew Kevin Anderson, Darcy Laurie, and Taylor Hastings.

SYNOPSIS:

Sheryl Bradshaw, a single woman looking for a suitor on a hit 1970s TV show, chooses charming bachelor Rodney Alcala, unaware that, behind the man’s gentle facade, he hides a deadly secret.

Somewhere between serial killer thriller and dark comedy takedown of sexist showbusiness industry standards, Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut Woman of the Hour gets at some psychologically uncomfortable truths about surviving in such a misogynistic world (especially for the 1970s in which the story unfolds, separated into different years and character threads) and the deceptiveness of a highly intelligent sociopath (a chilling Daniel Zovatto.) More tantalizingly, the film presents the bulk of the narrative on the stage of a matchmaking game show for supreme thrills, sharply editing back and forth through time with clever transitions that, yes, leave one hanging and eager to return, but equally invested in the wraparound events connected to the general premise.

This story is also based on actual events, but Anna Kendrick is so confident, comfortable, and skilled in telling this story she knows she doesn’t have to drop that bombshell until the film is over. Working from a screenplay by Ian McDonald, one would be forgiven for assuming this was all a brilliant, fictional premise that places an aspiring actress on a cheesy dating show alongside a chauvinistic host (Tony Hale) who encourages the titular woman of the hour to dumb her intelligence down and play up physical beauty to make herself more appealing to the uneducated and slimy bachelors, with one of those three being a sly-tongued, manipulative, murderous maniac capable of masking that ugly side for just enough time to lure his prey into isolation and danger.

Anna Kendrick also plays that frustrated LA-based actress who has trouble booking gigs. As Sheryl, it also gives the well-known actress ample opportunity to seemingly inject a more personal connection into the character whenever venting about such notorious Hollywood sexism (whether it be individuals likely being blacklisted from roles for refusing nudity or the demeaning types of characters they are expected to play, even on a reality TV game show.) One can only assume this behavior was rampant more in the 70s and somewhat eliminated in modern times, but the point is still largely valid and effective.

Woman of the Hour is not single-minded, though. Jumping around before and after this portion of the narrative, the focus turns to Rodney, the previously mentioned serial killer who is undoubtedly strange and unkempt but with enough charm and photography skills to earn the trust of young women and men, typically promising them modeling fame and an opportunity to win some money. Other times, he is in a lucky position to help out an unassuming soul before conducting his disturbing kills, which occasionally switch to the victim’s perspective to make the scenes all the more unsettling.

A third perspective follows Nicolette Robinson’s Laura, an audience member watching the game show who instantly recognizes Rodney as the man who sexually assaulted and murdered her friend. This is the shakiest part of the narrative, as the film slightly tries too hard to make everyone from her initially reasonable boyfriend to front desk security guards play down her concerns and make her out to be crazy. As filled with urgency as Nicolette Robinson’s terrified and traumatized performance is, there is a disconnect between observing men being forced to behave uselessly to keep the mechanics of dramatized elements of this true story working and men’s more genuinely scummy personalities here.

That’s mostly nitpicking since Woman of the Hour is a suspenseful, heart-pounding exercise. It feels like it shouldn’t work, considering the narrative jumps backward and forwards, but it does, which is also a testament to the film making viewers deeply care about these characters, from the protagonist to the victims. Anna Kendrick has also clearly learned a lot over the years from acting, elevating tension through tense cinematography (working with Zach Kuperstein), such as a wide-angle tracking shot tapping into the heart-racing fear of being a woman walking alone at night. She also arguably delivers the best performance of her career, especially when her capacity to play by the host’s rules goes out the window, demonstrating her intelligence and putting the men in the hot seat with tough questions. Again, the scariest part is that the most dangerous, sadistic person in the room maliciously adapts to that, practically knowing what she wants to hear.

Where Woman of the Hour ultimately ends up is also thrilling and challenging, suggesting that, even if it is profoundly messed up, the greatest survival mechanism for women is outsmarting even the most calculated, despicable men. 

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist

As humans in a changing world we crave continuity, reliability. Before we walk into a room, we like to be fairly certain of what we’ll find — walls, floor, furniture, not hot coals or clouds of poison gas. Thus the popularity of the franchise. It may not lead to great, revolutionary art, but at the end of a long day, when you kick off your shoes and sink down into the sofa, you may not be in the mood for “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” or a stuffed goat with a tire around its middle.

“NCIS,” for Naval Criminal Investigative Service, is a theoretically inexhaustible series about an elevated team of military police investigating cases involving military personnel; you might think that is too shallow a drawer to fill several series over many years, but you would be wrong, especially given how thin the writers are willing to stretch that connection.

The series offers a full-course meal of mainstream theatrical possibilities. It’s a police procedural, a metaphorical family comedy, a workplace comedy, a soap opera, a melodrama, a low-budget action adventure. You get good-looking heroes, a smattering of goofballs, a quirky medical examiner or two, a little romance — the amino acids of many such procedurals, to be sure, but “NCIS” is especially deft at combining kick-back entertainment with lean-forward tension. The military association adds a patriotic element, which I imagine some viewers prize, though the very premise of the series implies that the military is not squeaky clean. These aren’t shows I customarily watch, but it’s easy to see why people do.

The franchise has included iterations set in Los Angeles, New Orleans, Hawaii and Sydney, each applying local color and flavor to a tried-and-true formula; some have come and gone, some have not been around long enough to go, but none is likely to display the staying power or global penetration of the original, about to embark Monday on its 22nd season.

Following that premiere on CBS, home to all “NCIS” series, is the newest addition to the family, “NCIS: Origins.” Instead of setting up in a new city, however, we are being sent through time, back to 1991, when “newly minted special agent” Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Austin Stowell), played by Mark Harmon in the original and narrating here, has just joined the team he will one day lead. (A team that has not yet added the C to its acronym, which looks odd on the windbreakers but is quicker to bark at suspects.)

We are in Oceanside — a new city, after all — on the grounds of Camp Pendleton. That it’s the least obviously sexy setting in the “NCIS” collection — no offense, Oceanside, not to say the ocean itself — is echoed in the team’s drab Quonset-hut headquarters, a stark contrast to the bright, modern, high-tech lairs of the contemporary shows. Here, we’re in a world of phone booths, pagers and bulky computers no one knows how to work, of Walkmans and videotape, which both simplifies and complicates the action. It is, in its way, a kind of relief, a vacation from Now.

Harmon, who left the series after the 19th season to be replaced by Gary Cole, established the model of the “NCIS” team leader — the stern yet supportive surrogate parent, time-worn, time-tested, ever ready to buck hidebound authority when necessary. Young Gibbs, a Marine sniper just recalled from Iraq after the murder of his wife and child, is not (yet) that person, though we get some hints he might be: his numbered “rules,” his “gut feelings.” At the moment, he’s neck-deep in trauma, getting in bar fights, failing his “psych eval.” There is some concern that he’s unstable, not quite Mel-Gibson-in-“Lethal Weapon” crazy, but potentially a danger to himself and others.

That the main character is a member of the team rather than its leader, as in other “NCIS” series, can feel a little awkward, given that it’s necessary for Gibbs, fresh behind the ears though he may be, to stand out from the group — that he see what others miss, and can handle a situation in an original way. When he says of a suspect, “He’s not our guy,” it won’t be that guy. It throws the ensemble off balance.

The team leader is Mike Franks (Kyle Schmid), Gibbs’ cowboy predecessor and mentor; with his horseshoe mustache, dark glasses and cigarettes, he’s like a ’90s cop dressed as a ’70s cop. (Older Franks, played by Muse Watson, appeared in some dramatic episodes of “NCIS.”) Hot-shot agent Lala Dominguez (Mariel Molino) is competitive and wary of Gibbs. (“You’re on my squad,” says Gibbs upon meeting her. “No, you’re on mine,” she replies, reasonably enough.) Agent Vera Strickland (Diany Rodriguez), who briefly appeared in the original series, is so far underused. (Only four episodes were available for review.)

Dark feelings and internal conflicts characterize these first episodes, which are full of raised voices, clenched jaws and steely stares. Necessary mood lightening is supplied by agent Randy Randolf (Caleb Martin Foote), friendly, chatty and the only one who wears a suit to work; “head secretary in charge” Mary Jo Hayes (Tyla Abercrumbie); and Granville “Granny” Dawson (Daniel Bellomy), promoted after a couple of episodes to the K-9 squad and the care of a dog named Special Agent Gary Callahan. (“It’s just the one dog, but he’s all the dog you need.”) Bobby Moynihan (major comic relief), Lori Petty and Julian Black Antelope provide forensic backup.

As to Stowell, he is square-jawed and broad-shouldered and though his casting was obviously the end of many discussions, he does not strike me as someone who will grow up to become Mark Harmon. (Harmon’s son Sean, who had the original idea for “Origins,” developed by franchise vets David J. North and Gina Lucita Monreal, played the younger Gibbs in “NCIS” flashbacks.) He could stand to relax a little. But perhaps that’s the point.