Browse: Home / Film on the Internet: THE ROYAL HOTEL

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login

The-SoluteLogo

A Film Site By Lovers of Film

Menu

Skip to content
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • Long Reviews
  • News
  • Articles and Opinions
  • Other Media
  • The Friday Article Roundup: The Truth is In Here
  • Lunch Links: Schwarzfahrer
  • Websites on the Internet: THE SOLUTE
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray
  • Movie Gifts Holidays 2024

Film on the Internet: THE ROYAL HOTEL

Posted By ZoeZ on March 27, 2024 in Reviews | Leave a response

For March, I’ve been concentrating on films directed by women, and now we round out the month with a film where I suspect that aspect matters very much.

Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel is movie of tension, uncertainty, and anticipatory dread; it’s about what it’s like to live in a world where Chekhov’s gun is always on the mantelpiece, where you watch, your stomach in knots, as men walk by it and caress the trigger. Pick it up, playfully point it in your direction. Are they joking? If you laugh, does that make it a joke? What happens if you can’t play along?

Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) are backpacking through Australia, whiling away their days with flirtations, cruises, and drinks–until their money runs out. To rack up some quick cash, they take jobs at The Royal Hotel, a mining town bar in the beautiful, sun-drenched middle of nowhere. There’s no wifi, no cell signal. The bus only comes every few days. I can’t help thinking of that excellent, funny-chilling speech in The Haunting: “So there won’t be anyone around if you need help.” Add in the boisterous, hard-drinking miners, and you can throw in an Always Sunny quote for seasoning: “And, you know, they can’t refuse … because of the implication.”

One of the reasons The Royal Hotel is so unnerving is that how rarely that implication crystallizes into an explicit threat–and how hard it is to know or explain when that’s happened. Green, Garner, and Henwick also make some of the deftest use of unstated, barely-alluded-to backstory that I’ve seen. We know that Liv is in Australia because “it was the farthest away,” and there’s a stiffness to that revelation that speaks volumes; we know that Hanna’s mom drank “enough” for her to be cautious, but we don’t know how much that colors her small-voiced attempts at de-escalation and self-protection when things get bad. She’s more attuned to potential danger than Liv is–sometimes literally more awake to it–but that may not be enough. We may believe her, but Liv may not, at least not always.

The most obviously unsettling presence at The Royal Hotel is Dolly (Daniel Henshall), who, right from the start, stares a little too long. (Towards the end, a viscerally skin-crawling–but, again, plausibly deniable–phone call makes you feel like Hanna and Liv are lucky to remain in psychological thriller country: Dolly brings the potential for much, much darker horror.) But even temporary allies among the patrons can’t be entirely trusted. Hanna forgives affable Matty (Toby Wallace) for his initial frat-bro “jokey” sexual harassment, and aww, he’s sweet! He sings along with Kylie Minogue! He’s fun to hang out with! What a nice holiday romance for Hanna! … Until Matty oh-so-casually redirects an Indigenous Australian delivery man from actually stepping foot into the bar, that is. Until he throws a violent tantrum at Hanna turning down sex. Maybe quiet, respected, shyly sweet Teeth (James Frecheville) would be a better bet, and he’s who they should depend on. Then again, maybe not. In the middle of nowhere, trust is a high-stakes proposition.

The Royal Hotel doesn’t quite stick its landing, and the note of fuck-you empowerment it reaches for unfortunately feels more forced and less convincing than all its exquisitely convincing disempowerment. I don’t want it to turn into Wolf Creek, but as it stands, its (relatively) optimistic ending feels vaguely dishonest to me. I want to believe in it, but I don’t.

But that feels like the only noteworthy flaw. For much of its runtime, The Royal Hotel is a masterpiece at conveying how terrifying it can be to be a woman in the company of a lot of strange, drunk men, especially out in the middle of nowhere, and it manages to explore that feeling effectively, intelligently, and from every possible angle, ably turning an observation into a top-notch film. The cast is fantastic, even down to the smallest roles, and the landscape and cinematography are likewise exceptional. It’s worth watching, and if you see it, you should come try to argue me into liking the ending more. I want to believe.

 

The Royal Hotel is streaming on Hulu.

Posted in Reviews | Tagged Film on the Internet, Kitty Green

About the Author

lamijames@gmail.com'

ZoeZ

Related Posts

Websites on the Internet: THE SOLUTE→

Film on the Internet: THE CRIMSON KIMONO→

Film on the Internet: THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD→

Film on the Internet: FOLLOWING→

  • Comments
  • Popular
  • Most Recent
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleWonderful piece, Sam. It's made…
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleFellow heretic here. I've never…
  • n***********@gmail.com'
    Ruck Cohlchez on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEI wouldn't have called it…
  • j***********@gmail.com'
    Son of Griff on LIFE ITSELFGlad to hear back from…
  • n*********@gmail.com'
    Jake Gittes on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEThis is the single most…
  • “The End” of SAVAGES

    38549 views / Posted November 10, 2014
  • The Untalented Mr. Ripley: The Craft of Standup Comedy and the Non-Comedy of TOM MYERS

    31197 views / Posted June 26, 2018
  • What the fuck did I just watch? SPHERE

    30590 views / Posted March 19, 2015
  • Gordon with Mr. Looper

    Attention Must Be Paid: Will Lee

    27740 views / Posted January 7, 2023
  • Scenic Routes: SHOWGIRLS (1995)

    23692 views / Posted November 20, 2014
  • The truth is FAR out there.

    The Friday Article Roundup: The Truth is In Here

    December 6, 2024 / The Ploughman
  • This is a way lower res image than I will be allowed to get away with at the new site.

    Lunch Links: Schwarzfahrer

    December 5, 2024 / The Ploughman
  • Websites on the Internet: THE SOLUTE

    December 4, 2024 / ZoeZ
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray

    December 3, 2024 / Greta Taylor
  • Movie Gifts Holidays 2024

    December 2, 2024 / The Ploughman

Last Tweets

    ©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by Bellingham WP LogoBellinghamWP.com.

    Menu

    • Home
    • Who We Are
    • About
    • Privacy
    • Contact Us
    • Login
    Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!