I saw a couple of movies this weekend that I liked but didn’t love. Woman of the Hour is the directorial debut of Anna Kendrick, who also starred in the film. It’s airing on Netflix, and I have a lot of mixed feelings about Netflix movies in general. I don’t generally go out of my way to see them, and when I do see them, they’re generally just kind of meh. The other movie I saw was Here, which reunites director Robert Zemeckis with stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright for the first time since Forrest Gump.

Woman of the Hour is fine but not outstanding.

I enjoyed Woman of the Hour, but I didn’t love it. That said, I think it was an impressive first effort for Kendrick’s directorial debut. The storyline was a bit scattered and was kind of about something else other than what it was advertised as. It was advertised as a movie about a struggling actress who appears on The Dating Game in the late seventies, and the man she chooses has a dark past. What it was really about was that man, who was a real-life serial killer who potentially killed dozens of women. The bit about being on The Dating Game, while a major subplot, was just that, a subplot.

I did appreciate the acting performances in the film.  Kendirck’s role as the struggling actress Sheryl Bradshaw showed her perkiness and her willingness to be subversive. Daniel Zovatto’s performance as the serial killer, Rodney Alcala, was subtle and sinister, often teetering on the edge of a cliff before finally jumping off. The main issue with the movie was that the storyline was disjointed. It went back and forth in time, making it difficult to keep up with, and there were too many characters who were only peripherally involved in the narrative and whose deals in the story weren’t sufficiently paid off, making their time in the story wasted.

I would like to see Kendrick direct more films. She has a voice that needs to be heard, and with more experience, she could become a fine director. This is a decent debut, but hopefully, she can improve on this effort next time. If you have Netflix, it’s worth checking out, but don’t change any plans to watch it.

I Liked Here More Than I Thought I Would…

…but that was a low bar. About five or ten minutes into the movie, I thought to myself, “Oh, I am not going to like this.” But as the movie went on and we got to know the characters, I got pretty engaged. The movie largely takes place in the living room of one house or in the forest that it would later occupy. The camera doesn’t move until the very end of the film, making it a lot like watching a play. It made for an interesting watch and one that could potentially be off-putting to some people.

Thematically, it was very strong. There were a lot of things going on in this film that I was able to relate to. I believe this is a film for older viewers. Gen X-ers and Baby Boomers will be able to relate to this film a lot more intimately than Millennials or Gen Z-ers. This is a film about loss and losing time and what we give up over the course of a lifetime to simply get from one day to the next. This film was also disjointed and was more like watching a lot of vignettes, but I thought they were effective, and I was emotionally moved by the story and the characters.

Overall, it wasn’t a strong weekend of viewing, but I’m glad I saw each film. We’re in that weird period before Thanksgiving where you might watch something that is clearly Oscar bait, or you might get stuck with something that’s just being dumped by the end of the year. While I didn’t get that feeling from either of these films, I wasn’t blown away by either of them either… either.

For more in-depth thoughts on both these films, check out the Gen X v Z: A Movie Podcast, available wherever you listen to podcasts.