The fact that in 1978 an active serial killer once appeared in real life on a dating game television show seems at first a curious car crash moment to ogle in passing, hardly worth extrapolating into a feature-length movie – not without turning real murder and real victims into sideshow spectacle – but in her directorial debut, Anna Kendrick takes that moment and almost succeeds in finding the balance between respecting its grim reality and lampooning a world – then and now – that idly indulges sick male pathology with a sympathetic "there, there", fails to vet men before, say, letting them on camera, and asks women to laugh gaily at male idiocy.
★★★☆☆
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