As someone who was very familiar with this case before watching the movie, I was extremely disappointed with the liberties they took with the source material. I think it's kind of odd that there was no mention of Tali or Robin or many of the women he was actually convicted of harming and/or killing beyond the reduction of Robin to "a 12-year-old girl" in the epilogue. All three victims highlighted in this were based on real people, and I think he might have been convicted of one of their deaths, and maybe the movie wanted to give a voice to some of the lesser-known victims, and that's fair and makes sense. Also, the movie was about Cheryl primarily, so it was limited in additional characters it could include. Still, it bothered me that so many of his victims were treated as mere footnotes in this story, if even mentioned at all. And yet they had time to add a completely fictional plotline that was totally unfair to the real-life people involved in bringing justice to the victims. I've heard Kendrick do interviews where she acts like Rodney Alcala was floating around for a decade, being reported left and right and nobody in authority cared. That's the impression you might walk away with after watching this movie and hearing her speak. The truth is far more complicated than that. But trust a Hollywood actress/director to manipulate the facts to support a very self-serving agenda.
The narrative was, for the most part, very tight, very suspenseful and very thought-provoking. But there were some elements I think should have been cut.
For example, I did not like the scene where Cheryl has an implied drunken and non-consensual encounter with a male friend. That just feels disrespectful to the real woman. I don't think that was inspired by her real life because my understanding is little is known about Cheryl Bradshaw's private life. Women are complex beings and have as many different experiences as there are women out there. Don't reduce us just because you seem to think we're all essentially extensions of each other with very similar core experiences. I'm sure there are many women in Hollywood who can relate to that kind of experience. I don't know if it's fair to assume Cheryl can just because she's a woman and she once appeared on a game show. Once again, I'm assuming that was made up for dramatic effect. And it just seems insensitive to attach that kind of experience to her as part of a fictional narrative that people may think is true.
Also, I did not like that they altered what happened on the actual game show episode. If you watched the movie and know the true story, you'll know what I'm referring to. Part of the horror of watching that old episode of The Dating Game was seeing how obvious it was that there was something deeply unsettling about Rodney. And yet how perfectly he molded his creepy answers to the expectations of the show. In real life, he wasn't even putting on an act, and that's what's scary. He was being his authentic self, and the audience was laughing along with him. So the movie missed the mark in that regard. Also, I think in real life, the other two bachelors were better people than the movie made them out to be. I don't know this for sure, but that's the impression I got from watching a recent documentary. A male executive producer did not want Rodney on the show but compromised so long as the other two could be better candidates and contrast with his weirdness. That was my understanding. It was a woman who talked him into allowing Rodney on the show. The movie makes it seem like women had the better intuition here, but the men ignored them. That is false.
And finally, I hated, hated, hated the addition of the Laura character. It was melodramatic nonsense and complete fiction. There was no Laura in the real case from what I'm reading. In fact, even though it has been said she was inspired by many people who spoke up but were disregarded, I have no idea where this idea that Rodney got away with his crimes for so long because of the police ignoring women like Laura came from. The reason Rodney got away with committing so many murders is because when two young girls recognized him on a wanted poster and the police arrested him for what should have been the biggest slam-dunk trial ever - the assault of an 8-year-old whose near-lifeless body was actually found in Rodney's home by the police after they followed up on another concerned and very observant citizen's tip - he was given a plea deal, and then the parole board let him out after roughly three years. And then, when he was caught violating his parole with another young girl, he was given another slap on the wrist and allowed out of prison after only two years or less. There were definitely heroic cops involved in this case, but you don't hear about them at all in the movie. You mostly come away with the false impression that if people had just listened to the women, everything would have turned out a lot better. It's an empowering message for those in 2024 who believe that cops can't be trusted and women are always victims and all men are suspect, but it has very little to do with the actual story. I recommend watching the documentaries on Rodney Alcala if you want to know more about how the real world works and less about how disillusioned Hollywood stars think it works. It's funny because the truth would have been so much more compelling. But I get the feeling that Hollywood elected not to go with the truth because they're not trying to vilify lenient American judges and parole boards here, just cops and people who don't believe women.
Overall, I would give this movie a 3 and a half. It was technically very well done. The actors all did a great job, even though I did not think Anna Kendrick or Daniel Zovatto looked or acted at all like the real people, making the movie feel even more false. I don't know why Anna Kendrick even bothered consulting with the prosecutor Matt Murphy on this case because it seems like everything she included was stuff she could have learned from Wikipedia, padded up with a lot of fiction. It seems many people will walk away from this movie believing lies about the true case and walking away with all of their biased worldviews confirmed, totally missing out on the nuances of true crime.
I am drawn to Anna Kendrick's movies despite not really being a fan of hers because I don't know her personally, but I know people who have acted alongside of her many years ago. An older relative, for example. And what's funny is that I seem to remember that older relative mentioning a photographer she met while acting and how he seemed to have this weird interest in convincing young women to model for him. In fact, I had a run in with him once myself, and he gave me his business card. I can't remember how old I was at the time, but I seem to think I was around 12 because I'm connecting that memory to being in sixth grade and being in a specific dance class. He knew my relative, and I knew a relative of his, so maybe that's why the interaction occurred and maybe he meant it innocently. I don't know. I may be combining him with Rodney Alcala in my head because that one encounter I had with him made me think of a lesson learned from Alcala; you have to be extremely careful when you're a young girl or woman especially and are being approached by a man you don't know that well. You never know if his intentions are pure. I tend to go with the assumption they're not in order to play it safe. So I never did anything with that business card and don't think I ever spoke with him again. Probably no great loss. Though as far as I know, he never was accused of any criminal activity and might just have been your average everyday weird guy.
To sum up, I would have liked this movie a lot more if it had been fictional and not molded a true case to fit its very narrow worldview.
