After watching Anna Kendrick’s film, you might wonder who really was the woman of the hour. The easy and most obvious answer would be Sheryl Bradshaw. But if you look deeper, you’ll see that it was Amy all along. The character of Amy in the film is based on a real-life woman named Monique Hoyt, who, at the age of 15, not only managed to survive an attack by Rodney Alcala but also reported him to the police, because of which he was arrested on February 14, 1979, in Riverside County, California. Unfortunately, the law enforcement authorities didn’t take her quite seriously and only charged Alcala for sexual assault and misconduct. Those who have seen the film might know that that guy actually tried to kill her.
Real-life Monique met her assaulter on the streets of downtown Pasadena (or San Gabriel as per the film) on February 13, 1979. At the age of 13, Monique had run away from her house and had been living on the streets for a year when she finally came across Rodney, who introduced himself as an aspiring photographer and showed his willingness to click her pictures for an upcoming competition. However, her encounter with Rodney didn’t exactly go the way it did in the film. As per the real-life case’s transcripts, Monique was in the street when Rodney arrived there in his car and asked her if she was interested in posing for some pictures that he was clicking for a contest. The young teenager saw some photography equipment in Rodney’s car, which pushed her to buy his story, and therefore, she sat in his car without giving a second thought.
In Woman of the Hour’s ending, Amy told Rodney that they should go back to his apartment, but they stopped at a gas station on their way. As per the media reports, after Monique sat in the serial killer’s car, he made an excuse that he needed to pick up some more equipment from his apartment, but by the time they got there, it had gone pretty dark, which was why they postponed their plan till the next day, i.e., Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1979. As per the reports, Rodney raped Monique for the first time in his apartment, but it is still quite unclear why she decided to go with him to the mountainous region the next day. As shown in the film, Rodney took Monique to a secluded spot in the area where she started posing for the pictures, which wasn’t the only thing Rodney was looking for. Things got pretty twisted when Rodney asked her to undress herself. She didn’t mind and therefore agreed to remove her clothes, and Rodney started taking some obscene pictures of her. In a sudden movement, Rodney attacked Monique with a rock (or a tree limb, as per some reports) and knocked her unconscious. When she woke up, she found herself tied with a rope and being brutally raped by the man whom she believed to be a photographer. One cannot imagine what Monique went through on that dreadful night, but she did know that she had to survive at all costs. The next morning, when Monique woke up, she found Rodney crying beside her. The thing is, all narcissistic serial killers see themselves as victims of the circumstances. I guess Rodney made himself believe the same. He might have told himself that attacking Monique was a mistake and therefore started crying for what he had done. When Monique gained consciousness the next morning, she saw the vulnerable side of the serial killer and therefore used the opportunity to gain his trust instead of upsetting him even further. She acted normal, as if nothing had happened between them. She assured him that she would keep it a secret and even asked him not to share it with anyone or it would embarrass her. Maybe that’s what made Rodney believe that she wouldn’t report him to the police, and therefore he decided not to kill the woman and instead take her back to his apartment.
Rodney was skeptical at first, but Monique assured him that he hadn’t done anything wrong. Rodney might have thought that she was okay with whatever took place and sympathized with his demons. He finally untied her and took her to the spot where the car was parked, and Monique kept pretending that everything was normal until Rodney stopped the car at a gas station to take a leak. Here, the film made an accurate depiction of the real-life event about how Monique escaped her assaulter. Rodney was sure that Monique wouldn’t betray him and therefore decided to leave her alone in the car. And the moment he left, Monique escaped to a nearby motel, where a couple took her in their room. She quickly reported the incident to the police, but Rodney had already left the gas station.
In the ending sequence, the Woman of the Hour film made some drastic changes from the real-life incident. After the crime was reported, Monique was taken to the Los Angeles Police Department, where she narrated the horrible events she went through and described the man responsible for it. The police got into action and arrested Rodney Alcala from his apartment for sexual assault and misconduct. While Rodney was still awaiting a trial, his mother, Anna Maria Gutierrez, paid the bail money and got her son out, after which he continued his murderous spree. A point to add here, Rodney wouldn’t have been eligible for a bail if he was charged with Monique’s attempted murder, but I guess, authorities didn’t see him as the killer-type. It is also a recurring theme of Anna Kendrick’s film that points out that bad people get away with all sorts of crimes only because good people tend to ignore their actions.
As per the reports, Monique failed to show up at the trial due to her mental health issues. She was the only witness in the case and in her absence, the court had to drop all the charges against Rodney. Once again, he was a free man who went on killing innocent women in cold-blood. As per the film’s ending credits, it was only during his rearrest that authorities were able to understand the full extent of Rodney’s crime. Monique, one of the lucky survivors of the Dating Show Killer, eventually became a key witness during the trial, and her testimony, along with other evidence, sent him to prison to rot for the rest of his life. Filled with hatred for the woman, Rodney wrote atrocious tales about Monique in his book, “You the Jury.” Monique finally met her assaulter for one last time when she showed up at the time of his death in 2021 to put a final nail in his coffin.
