What "Woman of the Hour" is going for isn’t some ultimate period-piece authenticity. It’s trying to deconstruct television, along with the male aggression that can descend into violence, and to show you how they work together.

Anna McKibbin of the AV Club gives Woman of the Hour a B, calling the director’s debut effort “ambitious,” as she’s not satisfied to simply gesture toward the magnitude of misogyny. In McKibbin’s words:

Anna Kendrick’s “Woman of the Hour,” in which she makes her directorial debut and stars, premieres on Netflix on Oct. 18. It follows the real-life, tragic trail of deaths left by serial killer and sex offender Rodney Alcala in the ’70s while he was also able to become a contender of the popular game show

The movie tells the true story of a serial killer who found his next potential victim on national television in 1978. Anna plays Cheryl Bradshaw, a bachelorette at the center of an episode of the blind-dating television show The Dating Game.

WHAT IT'S ABOUT Anna Kendrick makes her directorial debut with "Woman of the Hour," a thriller constructed around the true story of serial killer Rodney Alcala appearing on "The Dating Game" TV show in 1978.

The main reason for that is Anna Kendrick, who makes a formidable, clear-eyed directorial debut in addition to playing Bradshaw. Using plenty of her own career experiences, Kendrick presents Bradshaw’s story as a grimly common one of pervasive,

That simply cannot be true” is the reaction many will have to the narrative centerpiece of Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut, “Woman of the Hour.” And yet: On a 1978 episode of “The Dating Game,” one of the “eligible bachelors” was a serial killer in the midst of a murder spree.