Screenwriter Ian McDonald’s savvy script for this true crime thriller made the 2017 Top 10 Hollywood “Black List” of as-yet unproduced motion picture screenplays. I’m amazed it took this long to get turned into a film, and impressed by the skill with which Anna Kendrick did so: definitely one of the best, most assured directorial debuts in recent memory.
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| Dating Game host Ed Burke (Tony Hale) and contestant Sheryl Bradshaw (Anna Kendrick) have no idea that one of her three potential suitors is a serial killer. |
It was a simpler time. No background checks were conducted; contestants — of both sexes — were chosen solely on the basis of appearance and personality. (The mind doth boggle ... and a 5-minute clip from that episode is viewable via YouTube.)
Kendrick and McDonald structure their film cleverly, opening with a 1977 prologue that takes place in the wide open spaces of Wyoming. A sweetly bashful young woman named Sarah (Kelley Jakle) has allowed herself to be driven to this remote spot, in order to be photographed by Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto).
He frames her, lovingly, for several shots ... and everything feels wrong. His smile and words of encouragement are too smarmy; his posture is coiled, like a snake waiting to strike. Poor Sarah is oblivious.
The inevitable is awful, and although Kendrick and cinematographer Zach Kuperstein don’t dwell on it exploitatively, the sequence continues long enough to reveal the horrible way that the actual Alcala cruelly toyed with some of his victims, like a cat torturing a mouse.
We then leap to 1978 Hollywood, where aspiring actress Sheryl Bradshaw (Kendrick) is auditioning for a bargain-basement role offered by a pair of slimy casting directors (Matty Finochio and Geoff Gustafson). The encounter is embarrassing and dehumanizing; Kendrick’s frozen smile and wounded gaze speak volumes.
As becomes clear, when Sheryl later commiserates with neighbor and best (only?) friend Terry (Pete Holmes), she has been struggling with this goal for awhile, with no success. She even has an agent, who eventually gets Sheryl booked onto The Dating Game: a great way to get noticed, she’s promised.
Sheryl’s prep and participation in this sexist excuse for daytime entertainment becomes this film’s narrative center: a single-day experience periodically interrupted as the film jumps back and forth in time, to track a few of Rodney’s other ... um ... activities.
The first leap is to San Gabriel, California, in 1979, when he picks up embittered teenage runaway Amy (Autum Best, in a very impressive film debut). Having fled a dysfunctional home life, she recklessly accepts Rodney’s offer of a ride, and his seemingly shy desire to photograph her amid the nearby low mountains.
Despite her youth, Amy possesses a bit of street-smart wariness; her sideways glances at Rodney are mildly mocking. But he’s a far better “actor,” and the atmosphere, and Zovatto’s performance, are totally creepy; Kendrick maintains an unsettling degree of perverse unease.
Additional time jumps include a brief stint in 1977, where — while working as a photojournalist for The Los Angeles Times — Rodney is questioned by police, during a routine investigation that later penetrates his cool façade; and 1971 New York, when he helps the bubbly, self-assured Charlie (Kathryn Gallagher) move into her apartment.
Unlike Sarah, Amy and even Sheryl, Charlie isn’t the slightest bit vulnerable; she’s totally in command of her life. But also too trusting...
The Dating Game sequences become longer, as the film proceeds. The assignment is way beyond Sheryl’s comfort zone, particularly when forced into a slightly more revealing dress, and confronted by the unapologetically condescending and misogynistic show host, Ed Burke (Tony Hale). He becomes this story’s visible jerk: a passive-aggressive, sexist pig who delights in belittling the female contestants. Hale makes him absolutely deplorable.
Burke is a fictitious character; the actual Dating Game host and radio DJ, Jim Lange, was enormously popular and (as far as we know) a genuinely nice guy ... although the obligatory kisses he exchanged with each bachelorette would be an ick factor these days.
McDonald also concocted Laura (Nicolette Robinson), a woman who recognizes Rodney at a key moment, and remembers him as the guy last seen before her best friend was murdered. Laura is a composite of the many people who tried to raise the alarm about Alcala over the years, but were rebuffed by a system that simply wasn’t equipped to believe in such monsters.
Robinson’s performance is powerful, and runs an impressive emotional gamut.
Even so, Kendrick remains the stand-out, and her performance as Sheryl is a master class in subtlety. The jovial face and sunny attitude that she usually shows the world — magnified by Kendrick’s radiant, toothy smile — often is at odds with her wary or disappointed body posture and frozen gaze. People keep letting her down.
And there’s no concealing Sheryl’s distaste, as she allows herself to be transformed into a perky Dating Gamecontestant, armed solely with vacuous questions for her three unseen potential suitors. A spontaneous decision to “break script” supplies this film’s most satisfying moment, but it’s fleeting; by this point, we’re horrified and worn numb by the casual ease with which Alcala continues to wreak havoc.
Kendrick draws excellent performances from everybody, and you’ll not hear a wrong note from McDonald’s narrative and dialogue. Granted, this isn’t exactly what went down, from 1968 to ’79, but too many details are uncomfortably accurate ... and, thanks to the way Zovatto inhabits his role, we can readily imagine what Kendrick makes a point of notshowing.
Unlike most films of this nature, which emphasize the killer, Kendrick and McDonald focus on — and make us identify with — the victims. That’s a telling distinction, which grants a voice to those lost, and the impact on people who cared about them.
It’s another detail that highlights this film’s power. Bravo to all involved.
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