Ian McDonald’s screenplay for Woman Of The Hour first appeared on The Black List in 2017 before it was spotted by Anna Kendrick as the project she wanted to make her directorial debut with. Originally titled Rodney and Sheryl, it tells the chilling story of serial killer Rodney Alcala (David Zovatto) and Sheryl Bradshaw (Anna Kendrick) who met on the popular 70s show The Dating Game.
Finding A Way Into The True Crime Genre
McDonald was always interested in writing a true crime story, but he needed a specific way into the genre. “I feel like a lot of true crime films are recreations of ugly, upsetting events, but there’s not a whole lot that makes them culturally significant in the moment,” he continues.
The screenwriter is cognizant of the “moral implications of violence in screenplays. I think the more visually and viscerally upsetting something is, the greater the responsibility that the filmmakers are using the audience’s discomfort to say something meaningful.”
Ian McDonald. Photo by Julia Max
Many such crimes continue to go unreported and uninvestigated. “A lot of otherwise decent people find themselves looking the other way, and that’s part of what allowed Alcala to get away with what he did for so long. What I thought made the story interesting was this awful, venomous person not being a chameleon, but hiding in plain sight.”
The fateful game show scenes last around twelve minutes, but resonate throughout the entire film
At its heart, Woman Of The Hour examines the nature of power.
“From the broadest view, it’s about one person’s willingness to exploit or manipulate a power imbalance. It can put you in really difficult situations very quickly,” notes McDonald.
Who Are Sheryl & Rodney?
Sheryl moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. She’s very serious about her craft and begrudgingly accepts a role on The Dating Game, which she feels is beneath her career aspirations, to appease her manager.
“She’s smart and she trusts her feelings when she senses that something’s going wrong on the show. Sheryl is simultaneously smart, independent and vulnerable.” This is evident in a short but impactful scene in the parking lot when Rodney approaches Sheryl.
Rodney is seemingly charming and charismatic; a true gentleman. “He’s also a sociopath and incredibly selfish. He’s driven by basic urges.”
Sheryl (Anna Kendrick) and Rodney (Daniel Zovatto) Photo by Leah Gallo/ Netflix
“He was someone who was in control of himself at the early stage of his career, but as he got further into it, he began to behave recklessly and carelessly and increase the risk of being caught.”
Literal Truth, Emotional Lie
Ian McDonald thoroughly researched the true story, but was careful not to present Woman Of The Hour as a dry set of facts to avoid it becoming a documentary.
McDonald and Kendrick extensively discussed the Vietnam War novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien to decide how to best dramatize real life events. They debated whether accurately depicting war events best describes what it felt like to be in Vietnam at the time.
“There can be a literal truth, but it’s an emotional lie because that in no way reflects the emotional experience of the people who were there.” Although Woman Of The Hour was faithful to actual events, “whenever we fictionalized something, it was in service to the emotional truth of the narrative.”
Although there were some composite characters, compressed timelines, and edited conversations, the film was always in service to the experience of women not being heard when they tried to alert authorities to such a dangerous man. To add to the sting, Alcala already had a violent criminal record before being a contestant on The Dating Game.
Flashbacks – A Way To Give Weight To The Victims
Woman Of The Hour is told in the present day with some strategically-positioned flashbacks to give audiences a deeper insight into Rodney Alcala’s psyche. “We also wanted the flashback sequences to give weight to the victims,” adds McDonald.
“I knew that the flashbacks were going to collectively depict how Rodney Alcala developed as a killer over the years, but I also knew that I didn’t want to spend my time exclusively with him because he’s not the most interesting person. I found the women far more compelling than him,” notes the screenwriter.
“To a certain degree, you figure out what you want to write by figuring out what you don’t want to write, in the same way that some sculptors work. They don’t carve the statue, they carve away everything that isn’t the statue.”
McDonald also knew that he didn’t want to focus on the investigation in his film. “I think a lot of true crime and serial killer films alternate between the killer and the cops. Neither of those are especially interesting characters to me.”
In some ways, maybe what makes the film stand out is less what’s included and more what’s not included. You can be creative by omission
Sheryl Bradshaw is interesting because she avoided becoming Rodney’s victim. “She’s someone who came really close to a very bad situation, but through cunning and luck and trusting her intuition, she avoided it.” She can also speak for the women who weren’t so fortunate.
Building Out The Story
Much of the story remained intact over the course of development. The Dating Game essentially scenes stayed the same across each draft.
“What changed was how each case opened and closed. Rodney was a very prolific serial killer so there were a lot of cases you can open and close chronologically. Or you can open each story about someone who will be attacked. That approach has a different theme or idea or tone baked into it.” Then there was the consideration of reordering the incidents to tighten the story.
Anna and Ian wrestled with the tone of Woman Of The Hour for some time.
“If it’s too dark, it becomes oppressive and off-putting and nobody wants to watch it. And if it’s not dark enough, you risk whitewashing the story being disingenuous.”
Amy (Autumn Best) Rodney (Daniel Zovatto) Photo courtesy of Netflix
“When Anna came on, the ending was a little bit softer than what it is now. She advocated for a tougher ending that was more closely aligned with the actual events of the case,” states the screenwriter.
Ian McDonald loves dark and bleak movies such as No Country For Old Men, Zodiac and Seven which influenced Woman Of The Hour. But the darkness needs to be earned. It can’t be a cudgel to provoke and shock the audience.
Woman Of The Hour contains some moments of levity to counteract the bleakness. McDonald looked to films like Boogie Nights for this approach, as well as to capture a sense of time and place.
The screenwriter quotes director, Joe Dante to address the concept of counteracting too much darkness, “You need to give the audience a place to laugh, because if you don’t, they’re going to find their own place and it’s not going to be where you want. We viewed that as a necessary release valve, so that their attention could be where we wanted it to be in the rest of the movie,” concludes McDonald.
