A woman at stake in reality: Anna Kendrick took liberties (video)

A woman at stake in reality: Anna Kendrick took liberties (video)

The actress and director did not try to stick to the “real” serial killer Rodney Alcala, nor to the candidate who made him win The Dating Game.

A woman at stakescheduled for a few days on Netflix, is an effective thriller, equipped with inspired staging and a clever subtext on the misogyny prevailing in the United States in the 1970s. Its director is none other than the actress Anna Kendrick (Pitch Perfect, Mr. Wolff…), who also takes on one of the leading roles: that of Cheryl Bradshaw.

In 1978, this young woman dreaming of becoming an actress agreed to participate in a popular marital television show: The Dating Game. Before her, the actress Sally Field (future mother of Forrest Gump) had been spotted by a wider audience thanks to this “Turn Merry-Go-Round” American, so why not try your luck? However, the experience could have turned into drama, Cheryl having chosen a certain Rodney Alcala as her suitor that day. Presented as a charming photographer, he revealed himself several months after the broadcast of the show to be one of the most sadistic serial killers in the history of the United States. It is performed here by Daniel Zovatto (It Follows, Don’t Breathe…), brilliant as a man who is by turns charming and frightening, giving off a particular aura, as if we had mixed Xavier Dolan and Vincent d’Onofrio.

Before reading more, watch out for spoilers : a video of the show is still visible on the web, and if its content is quite different from that seen in the film, it is better to discover these extracts afterwards so as not to spoil the experience.

A Woman at Play: Ride with a Serial Killer (review)

Taking the hit TV show as her starting point, Anna Kendrick knows she has a golden subject, allowing her to move away from the “simple” portrait of a killer to offer in passing a critique of American society, and in particular of male domination, the other candidates or the presenter of the show being for example shown as sexist. To do this, she moves away from the real show, which could have served as a basis.

Were the sexual questions too cash? Are Rodney Alcala’s complaints too explicit, preventing him from being sympathetic to today’s public? For us to understand why she chose him – because yes, he definitely won! – Kendrick had to make him charming in a certain way, and chose to focus more on his intelligence than on his seduction game.

Another detail that shocks when observing the real show: the look of the protagonists, especially that of Cheryl, with her dated perm and her dress with a plunging neckline, was not taken up at all by Kendrick. The question of makeup and her change of dress behind the scenes is however well addressed in the film, but in another way, she convinces the public with her wit, her barbs towards the candidates and less by her sexy appearance. By highlighting it too much, could it have hidden the film’s messages? The actress and director decided to move away from her model, or rather to draw inspiration from it very freely, drawing on elements that served her purpose and leaving aside those that would have been counterproductive.

Finally, behind the scenes The Dating Game the day of the recording not being known, the woman in the audience (Nicolette Robinson), who recognizes the potential killer of a friend of hers, does not stick to reality. It is there to represent the multiple occasions where relatives and victims were not listened to, because Alcala was not particularly discreet during his criminal journey. He could have been arrested well before 1979.

If the form moves away from reality, in substance, Kendrick still respected the idea that if the current had passed between “The Woman of the Hour” and her suitor on the air, their complicity on screen was short-lived, the young woman ultimately refusing to find him in order to share their gift together: a tennis match in a prestigious club, and not a stay in a luxurious hotel , unlike what we see in the film. She never confided what precisely had worried or disturbed her in this man’s behavior, but the fact is that she declined the gift of the production, and that she did indeed leave Hollywood shortly after. afterwards, as we can read at the very end of the feature film.

Concerning the terrible crimes committed by Alcala, here too, choices had to be made: the police counted eight confirmed murders, plus violent assaults, but according to the numerous photos of unidentified people in his portfolio, he could be linked to approximately 130 crimes throughout the 1960s-1970s.

The film presents in some detail those of Cornelia Crilley, a flight attendant he met, raped and killed in New York in 1971, as well as the rapes of a teenage hitchhiker whom he assaulted. sexually on Valentine’s Day 1979, but did not kill her. As can be seen in the film, she was able to reason with him into taking her back to town, then she ran away and called the police. He was arrested… but released shortly after. Which allowed him to kill a child, Robin Christine Samsoe. A particularly violent crime for which he was finally arrested for good, and sentenced to death. He died in prison in 2021.

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