Director: Kitty Green
Writers: Kitty Green and Oscar Redding
Stars: Julia Garner, Jessica Henwick, Hugo Weaving
Synopsis: US backpackers Hanna and Liv take a job in a remote Australian pub for some extra cash and are confronted with a bunch of unruly locals and a situation that grows rapidly out of their control.
Kitty Green’s sophomore feature directorial effort, The Royal Hotel, is not easy to watch. At first, it starts out in a rather conventional manner, as it follows Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) taking a job at a bar in a highly remote place in Australia to make money. Liv’s credit card has been maxed out, and the two can’t finish their backpacking trip if they do not find employment. Arriving at The Royal Hotel, the owner, Billy (Hugo Weaving), described the job as easy enough and should theoretically be simple once they get accustomed to the tasks they must perform.
However, it quickly becomes a nightmare, as Hanna and Liv are consistently catcalled by some of the men in the bar, including Matty (Toby Wallace), who has made some sexual advances towards Hanna, and Dolly (Daniel Henshall), who at first appears friendly but slowly starts to show his true nature to the girls. The film is inspired by Pete Gleeson’s 2016 documentary Hotel Coolgardie, chronicling two Finnish backpackers’ stint at a local hotel in Coolgardie after their credit cards were stolen in Bali.
Gleeson’s vérité documentary is extremely disturbing. The audience gets to see firsthand the verbal abuse Steph and Lina receive from the patrons, including their boss, who consistently berates them and “jokes” about their nationality to diminish their efforts. It’s a fascinating watch at times, especially when Gleeson attempts to sew a narrative thread between the girl and the late ‘Canman,’ who acts as a protector figure for them. But the final twenty minutes or so are sickening, as Gleeson films one of the men taking advantage of Lina while on a camping trip after she had one too many drinks while the others sit and do nothing to prevent this from happening. It also raises many ethical questions on vérité filmmaking: how far are the filmmakers willing to go in capturing this story without breaking the artifice? Way too far, as the camping trip caused Lina to contract an infection, resulting in permanent eyesight loss in one eye and over 30% in the other.
Green’s film does not show any rape but alludes to the men’s intentions through their verbal and non-verbal interactions with the protagonists. She also transposes many key sequences from the documentary into the world of fiction, making The Royal Hotel more of a character-driven thriller that isn’t afraid of challenging the audience on toxic masculinity.
In the film, Liv seems more open-minded to the culture than Hanna and consistently gaslights her into thinking everything is fine, most notably when Billy calls her a “sweet c—t” within minutes after they arrive. Liv believes it’s just an expression they coined here, while Hanna doesn’t believe it is. This scene establishes the dynamic between the two throughout most of the film. Liv wants to be more independent in meeting new people and exploring what this town offers, but Hanna quickly wants to go home. The documentary sees both characters as equals who experience Coolgardie together and put up with the patrons’ commentary to make money, while Green’s film pits a quasi-rivalry against the two as the film progresses.
At some point, the dynamic becomes redundant, but that’s when Green morphs the film into something far more unsettling than it initially introduced itself as. Near its midpoint, the film’s centerpiece scene involves a tense conversation between Hanna and Dolly (which Green takes massive inspiration from Lina’s conversation with Pikey in Hotel Coolgardie, though with a far less humorous tone). His behavior was already misogynist by then but becomes even more disturbing as he begins to make Grizzly sounds at her (alluding to the fact that she is Canadian, though is pretending to be one) and throw pennies on the bar floor.
The most difficult part of the scene is watching Hanna attempting to regain control but feeling completely helpless as none of the other customers around her want to de-escalate the situation and move Dolly out of the bar. It’s as if the town has adopted these actions as normal – and acceptable – towards women and won’t do anything to protect them from harm. It’s one of the most terrifying depictions of toxic masculinity ever put on film, and the scene will stay with you long after the credits have rolled.
The Royal Hotel takes an even more brutal and unnerving turn during its final act. While most of the abuse shown before the climax is verbal, Green shows barbaric acts of physical abuse near the movie’s end. It’s not as violent as some other films that have depicted the same subjects as The Royal Hotel, but its sharp cuts by editor Kasra Rassoulzadegan and wide shots from cinematographer Michael Latham convey its excessive brutality with aplomb. Earlier scenes establish the setting and characters, but it also allows Green to slowly crank up the sense of atmospheric dread as the men become more violent toward the protagonists.
The sound design effectively conveys such, with many scenes occurring when the bar is overflowing with patrons. You can’t hear a single discernable sound nor keep track of everything around you. You have to shout at people to get their attention, but as the men drink more beer, their violent behavior becomes more erratic. The tension is at a maximum and never diminishes, even when the cook, Carol (Ursula Yovich), attempts to regain control in the bar, while Billy drowns out his sorrows and never once takes the woman’s side.
Julia Garner gives the best performance of her career as Hanna, especially during its latter half. I’ll admit her earlier work hasn’t been my cup of tea, but in The Royal Hotel, she delivers a far bigger breakthrough performance than the ones that put her on the map in Green’s The Assistant and Ozark. A particular shot that occurs near the end involving Garner still hasn’t left my mind, showcasing how incredibly talented she can be. Her emotional progression, just through her eyes and facial expressions, from the moment we get introduced to her to its final shot, shows a massive, top-to-bottom transformation in her psyche. She first appears reserved and terrified, and naturally so. But something clicks inside of her that gives Hanna enough power to stand up for herself once and for all.
Henwick is also terrific as Liv but doesn’t have enough screentime for her arc to shift meaningfully, unlike Hanna, who isn’t the same person she once was as soon as they walked into that bar. Liv’s arc feels truncated, especially during its latter half, when she could’ve focused more on her before fully returning to Hanna. At 91 minutes, the film feels too long in some areas and too short in others. Plenty of cyclical scenes in the bar could’ve easily been trimmed down, while Green could’ve also helped flesh out the character relationships more because there was far more to tell with Liv. Regardless, The Royal Hotel remains a must-see, despite how difficult the watch will be for anyone sitting in front of it. Garner performs exceptionally, while Weaving and Henshall are terrifying to watch on screen. Green has never avoided discussing difficult subjects in her documentaries Ukraine is Not a Brothel and Casting JonBenet. With The Assistant and The Royal Hotel, she uses the world of fiction to craft deeply unsettling but necessary films that challenge audiences on the questions of power dynamics and toxic masculinity.
