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Woman of the Hour, Anna Kendrick's directorial debut, is officially heading to Netflix after the streamer picked up the rights to the movie at Toronto International Film Festival.
The film tells the true story of Cheryl Bradshaw (played by Kendrick), a contestant on US dating show The Dating Game in 1978 who unwittingly picked a serial killer as her match. Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto) was a registered sex offender and had been on the FBI's list of most wanted fugitives when he appeared on the show in 1978, but the network's background checks were lax enough that he made it onto The Dating Game anyway.
Alcala was sentenced to death for murder two years later, in 1980, with detectives estimating that he may have killed as many as 130 people – although he remained in prison until his death by natural causes in 2021.
Kendrick is best known for her roles in comedies like Pitch Perfect and family movies like Trolls, so this movie is somewhat of a change of pace for her. However, Woman of the Hour debuted with a score of 94% on Rotten Tomatoes after its TIFF premiere, with IndieWire's Katie Rife writing: "Kendrick’s image as an actor isn’t necessarily tied to dark, edgy material, but as a director she shows a talent for staging scenes of Hitchcockian suspense alongside her signature wit."
Bloody Disgusting's Megan Navarro, meanwhile, praised Kendrick for her "incisive vision, blending horror and humor with nonlinear storytelling, [which] makes for an unshakable debut."
