Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut, “Woman of the Hour,” is one of the trickiest balancing acts at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. You could call the film, which premiered Friday at the Princess of Wales Theatre, a black comedy — but that term usually suggests a seriocomic tone running through the film.
“Woman of the Hour,” by contrast, is humorous sometimes and not funny at all at others. It can be amusing when portraying kitschy ’70s pop culture shot through with casual sexism, but it is simply horrifying when sexism turns to rape and murder.
It’s the kind of tonal schizophrenia that would be a challenge for an experienced director to pull off, but first-timer Kendrick manages to make her film both weirdly entertaining and thoroughly disturbing.