Last year’s Toronto film festival was notable for several factors: a red carpet stripped bare of glitz by the US actors’ strike was one; another was a crop of feature film-making debuts from well-known actors turned directors. The quality was wildly variable – don’t expect to see Chris Pine’s first feature, Poolman, released anytime soon – but Anna Kendrick’s 70s California-set true crime thriller, Woman of the Hour, was a standout.
Kendrick also stars in the film, as Sheryl, an out-of-work actor persuaded by her agent to appear on a popular TV show, The Dating Game. A fellow contestant on the show – the one she picks as her date – is Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto), a quick-witted charmer who, the film’s deft nonlinear structure reveals, also happens to be a serial rapist and murderer.
