WHAT IT’S ABOUT Anna Kendrick makes her directorial debut with ‘Woman of the Hour’, a thriller based on the true story of serial killer Rodney Alcala who appeared in the 1978 TV show ‘The Dating Game’.

Kendrick also stars in the film as Cheryl Bradshaw, the aspiring actor who appeared as a bachelor in the Alcala episode. Spanning several time frames throughout the 1970s, the film reveals the extent of the monstrous crimes Alcala committed, as well as the inability or unwillingness of the law enforcement apparatus to take tips about him seriously.

Co-stars include Tony Hale as the show’s host, Nicolette Robinson (“The Affair”) as a woman who survived a collision with Alcala and Daniel Zovatto (“Station Eleven”) as the killer.

MY BLESSING There was one obvious way to tell the story of Alcala appearing in “The Dating Game,” a real-life event that is both completely unfathomable and strangely plausible considering how surreal things can get in Hollywood.

That’s what we might call the Ryan Murphy approach, exemplified by the TV impresario’s mini-empire, including twin current shows about the Menendez brothers and former NFL player Aaron Hernandez. That would mean bringing out the lurid qualities, amping up the true crime drama, and doubling down on the commentary on the dark side of American iconography.

Kendrick proves himself to be a thoughtful and promising filmmaker by rejecting that easy way out. She’s not here to imitate anyone else and she has a very different take on this story.

Her view has much less to do with Alcala himself and more to do with what he represents: the predatory reality that women face every day, in all kinds of circumstances, in a society dominated by insidious and pervasive forms of toxic masculinity.

Alcala exemplifies this at its worst, and Kendrick never shies away from his ruthless manipulations. But “Woman of the Hour” is also full of more routine examples.

The first time we meet Cheryl is during a humiliating and disturbing casting call. Robinson’s Laura opens her heart to her boyfriend about her traumatic history with Alcala, and he promptly gaslights her. No one else listens to her warnings. The depiction of “The Dating Game,” in which Cheryl is urged to smile and laugh and downplay her intelligence, shows the extent to which even innocuous forms of entertainment can actually be something much more sinister by upholding patriarchal norms.

Working from a screenplay by Ian McDonald, Kendrick understands the most essential principle of genre filmmaking, which is that the films that stand out from the rest do so because they are about something of meaning and value beyond just entertainment. That she also demonstrates an adept staging of tense moments, understanding how to photograph them from a character-first perspective and linking them to a larger portrait of tangible, lasting discomfort, suggests that the star’s future behind the camera is rosy.

BOTTOM LINE This is a successful directorial debut, a film made with cleverness and vision.