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With: Julia Garner, Jessica Henwick, Hugo Weaving, Toby Wallace, Ursula Yovich, Daniel Henshall, James Frecheville, Herbert Nordrum, Barbara Lowing
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Written by: Kitty Green, Oscar Redding
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Directed by: Kitty Green
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MPAA Rating: R for language throughout and sexual content/nudity
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Running Time: 91
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Date: 10/06/2023
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Bar Code
By Jeffrey M. Anderson
Following up her striking feature directorial debut The Assistant (2019), filmmaker Kitty Green continues exploring male-female dynamics and sexual politics, but, with The Royal Hotel, does it in a way that's less clinical and more organic. Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) are vacationing in Australia. (They claim they're from Canada, but I couldn't help wondering if they were lying about being Americans, ashamed of the lunatic antics of Republican leaders.) They're terrific together, like opposites: Hanna pale and severe and Liv looser and earthier.
After partying awhile, they run out of money and take a job tending bar at the title hotel, a dusty, run-down, remote place that carries with it more than just a little foreboding. The mostly-male crowd is rowdy and rude — one patron asks for his favorite brand of "cider," "Dickens" (say it together) — but even the cackling female patrons can dish it out. The men range from shy and polite — one fellow literally gets laughed out of the bar when he tries to ask Liv for a date — to seething with menace and threat, like the weirdly-named Dolly (Daniel Henshall), who sits at the end of the bar and glares.
The owner, Billy (Hugo Weaving) is mostly either drunk, hung over, or passed out, and he has a habit of not paying people who work for him. His partner Carol (Ursula Yovich), an Aboriginal Australian, is the last line of defense for the young women, but when Billy overdoes it and needs to be rushed to a hospital, Carol leaves them alone. (She urges them to work a few more days, raise some money, and get out.)
The movie scoots back and forth from lovely vacation images like a trip to a swimming hole, or laying out in the sun on deck chairs, to darker moments. Sometimes Hanna and Liv can't even agree on what, or whom, poses a possible threat. Green rarely resorts to actual violence, but the psychology of it is constantly in play. Best of all, Green and her co-screenwriter Oscar Redding come up with a spectacular and ironically symbolic ending, involving a lighter adorned with a photo of a topless, large-breasted woman. The Royal Hotel is one of my favorite movies of the year so far, reminding us to be nice to people who are serving you.
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