'The Royal Hotel' Movie Review: A Slow-Burn, Visceral Nightmare [Beyond Fest]
There's something so special - and unnerving - about when a piece of art can so perfectly capture a personal feeling or experience. The Royal Hotel, directed by Kitty Green, does just that. After the Beyond Fest screening, I actually texted a close friend that it made me feel ptsd from young nights out with that reckless friend who seems to think they're invincible.
The film follows two American backpackers, the wild partying and carefree Liv (Jessica Henwick) and the somewhat more reserved and definitely more self-aware Hanna (Julia Garner), as they take jobs at an isolated bar in Australia when they run out of money. The money is supposedly good, but the location is really, really remote - like, no phone service, and the bus only comes certain days, remote. Remote means it is not easy to get away if you need to.
Hanna is immediately weary of the job, but Liv talks her into it, something she does throughout the film. The woman in charge of the traveling workers, Carol (Ursula Yovich) is entertainingly deadpan and no-nonsense, and her partner Billy (Hugo Weaving) has no patience for the new girls. There will be no mollycoddling here. I assume many in the audience will find Liv unbelievably frustrating, which is a testament to Henwick’s acting. Liv can be selfish and single-minded to the point of danger, but then also so dismissive of any of Hanna’s feelings and fears.
The pub is frequented almost exclusively by miners in the area, AKA it's a very masculine crowd. On busy nights it’s overloaded with so much testosterone it’s like a training video about toxic masculinity. It’s clearly baked into the culture, with even one of the lone female patrons telling Hanna to smile more, and to show off her tits if she wants tips. There’s also a lot of use of the “c” word, which I realize is culturally different in Australia, but still, hearing it basically only come from the mouths of men talking down to women, it’s hard not to feel icky.
The movie comes in at a perfect 91 minutes, and is a slow burn that had my entire body filled with dread until the end. It’s the kind of film where, had I been watching at home, I would have been yelling at the screen. It’s just so evident that a woman was involved in the writing and directing of this movie. She understands the deep feeling of isolation and loneliness that comes from someone not believing you, made even more painful when that person happens to be another woman.
The Royal Hotel paints such a picture of everyday horrors, like the male entitlement behind unsolicited advice like, “You should smile more,” and the kind of men who are oh so charming... you know, until they aren’t. There aren’t jump scares or ghosts, and this isn’t a gory slasher. It’s much more atmospheric, like Uncut Gems, in the sense that once it gets going, it’s one long panic attack until the end. Green is a bit of an expert in that kind of tension, having written and directed Casting JonBenet (2017) and The Assistant (2019), which also stars Garner.
The jokey atmosphere of the bar makes it easy for Liv - and others - to shrug off bad behavior from the patrons, insisting they were just drunk and "mean no harm." It's a tale as old as time. You get a bad feeling about someone right off the bat, but then they do something charming and maybe even sweet. You wonder if your first impression was wrong, but in most cases, it wasn't. It's like when the smoke alarm keeps making an annoying noise, so you call maintenance, but then once they show up, the beeping has suddenly stopped, and you look like an idiot.
Toby Wallace, James Frecheville, Herbert Nordrum, and Daniel Henshall aptly demonstrate that Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde energy, where you can't tell who you should and shouldn't trust. Interestingly enough, it also shows the way the men so easily bond, even when competing for the same woman, while the women are constantly expected to be grateful and prove their worth. Garner's acting allows you to really feel Hanna's pain, frustration, and eventually, her fury, making this movie such a visceral viewing experience.
Long, lingering shots on angry, drunk faces devoid of empathy send shivers down your spine, while panning scenes of the dry landscape remind you how remote the location is. Perhaps not everyone will find The Royal Hotel as terrifying and stressful as I did. It brought back painful memories, but also made me grateful to not be in those kinds of uneven friendships anymore.
Whoever you are, The Royal Hotel is an interesting display of power dynamics, like watching a social experiment. What happens when you throw two outspoken American girls in a super remote mining town overrun with powerful (and drunk) men? The movie explores that moment when your gut is telling you to leave, but you ignore it because you think you're just being dramatic, and then the situation spirals wildly out of control.
The Royal Hotel hits theaters on October 6, 2023.
