Anna Kendrick stars and directs this film which, although based on a promising premise, was ultimately disappointing.
It’s the 1970s and Sheryl, played by Kenrick, is an aspiring
actress. She fails to get any proper acting jobs but her agent promises her
some exposure by casting her as the girl on a TV dating show.
As she goes about her business and prepares for the gig we
also get regular vignettes of a photographer who is also a serial killer. He
meets and enraptures various woman and takes them on photo shoots in the desert, before murdering them. These sequence were very matter of a fact and brutal and
this caused my wife to bail out after 40 minutes. I can see why as the scenes were disturbing and the film as a whole can’t be seen as entertainment.
Still, I pushed onto the end and although it was decent, the
film was unsatisfying and seemed somewhat embellished, which having read up on
the details appears to be the case.
The film is well realised with cheezy 70’s sets and costumes,
so it is a bit jarring when Sheryl is full on ‘me too’ slagging off the
idiotic men and suffering the host who mutters the ‘C’ word in her direction. I’m
not saying it was right, but what we saw on screen didn’t ring true of the 1970’s
that I remember.
The actual TV show begins about an hour into the film and Sheryl
is described as ‘the Woman of the Hour’ which seems a bit of an unlikely way to
justify the name of the film, which doesn’t make much sense anyway.
The show rumbles on with the sassy Sheryl going off script
and coming up with her own complicated questions to flummox the dopey male
suitors. I may be off target here, but I’m guessing a tightly scripted TV show
wouldn’t tolerate such dalliances – ask me about my ‘Weakest Link’ experience!
The host, not unreasonably, gets irritated with Sheryl, but
she finds an ally in the make up woman. Meanwhile an audience member recognises
the murderer as a criminal and tries to get him arrested but is thwarted by
idiot men, who seem over represented in this picture.
The serial killer demonstrates his wit and charm – as well
as his backstabbing skills against his fellow bachelors - and wins the day and a
date with Sheryl. Despite picking him Sheryl soon smells a rat and has a narrow
escape after an awkward dinner. As a coda we see the killer's next attempt at a kidnap and murder before
some captions tell us how things played out.
I think this story about a killer who happened to appear on
a TV game show was a bit thin for a full feature. I feel sure that all of
Sheryl’s ad-libbed questions and her after show date were all invented and I
doubt the added tension of the person reporting the killer during the taping
actually happened. As I mentioned this seemed like a jarring modern take on a 50-year-old
incident and it didn’t ring true.
The direction by Kendrick was OK but some scenes lingered
too long, and the pacing was poor. I also disliked the jump around timeline, with
it often unclear where we were with the serial killer’s journey.
Overall it’s probably worth a look but ultimately it is a
small piece of TV trivia stretched beyond breaking point to justify a full
feature.
Best Bit: The closing scene with the girl acting for her
life was well done
‘W’ Rating 12/23
