Woman of the Hour (2023) review

Allentown-born, Columbia University-trained actress Cheryl Bradshaw (Kendrick) is finding it difficult to find acting jobs in Hollywood, so her agent urges her to go on a show called The Dating Game for "exposure," but unbeknownst to her one of the contestants is serial killer Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto) - when not covering Cheryl's story, the film shows Rodney smooth talking his other victims over the years (and "collecting" photographs of them being tortured).  This is loosely based on true events - the real Alcala was eventually apprehended and sentenced to life in prison (he died in 2021) - and Ms. Kendrick, in her directorial debut, displays a good amount of composure, except the diced-up narrative halts forward momentum and it can't resist becoming another #YesAllMen movie, where almost all the male characters (even the ones not attracted to women) are beneath contempt: her "only friend" Terry (Pete Holmes) guilts her into having sex, host Ed Burke (Tony Hale) is misogynistic, the police don't take women's complaints seriously ... and then there's Rodney, the "Alpha Predator."  The concluding sequence involving Rodney and a teenage girl (who manages to escape) is so unnerving I wish the entire feature had that kind of power.