Checking Out Of "The Royal Hotel"

Horror awaits two young American women employed in a remote Aussie mining town

Director Kitty Green (The Assistant, Review Here) doesn’t shy away from sexual politics in the workplace, whether it’s a bro-coded swanky office in NYC helmed by the likes of a Harvey Weinstein-type predator or a remote town in the Outback (with no Wi-Fi) where new attractive female barbacks are ushered in every few weeks to provide entertainment to the thirsty and rather ominous male denizens.

The latter is the premise for the The Royal Hotel (2023), where Green once again teams with her muse, Julia Garner (Ozark, The Assistant) to bring us a formidable, soft-spoken woman trying to do right in a man’s world playing by men’s rules. Hanna (Garner), who is decidedly more world-weary than her carefree friend Liv (Jessica Henwick, Knives Out), agrees to a work assignment that takes the women to the middle of nowhere. There, Liv and Hanna work as bartenders and are referred to as “fresh meat” and “cunts” by the locals. Hanna gets the dubious distinction of being nicknamed, “sour cunt” because she’s not smiling much. “Smile more” urges the bar’s owner when he awakens to an empty bar. Liv assimilates to her role more readily and makes more excuses. “It’s the culture here” is often her response when Hanna calls out the lurid acts and dangerous sexual undertones of the men.

Source: The Rolling Stones / Liv (Jessica Henwick) and Hanna (Julia Garner) in 'The Royal Hotel,' directed by Kitty Green.

The Royal Hotel is streaming on Hulu.

Grade: B+ (Story and most of the acting is done well. Ending felt rushed with not enough backstory between main characters to warrant their friendship which in turn rendered their chemistry ineffectual)

Both the film’s premonition and its cautionary tale are well illustrated vis-a-vis the British women that Liv and Hanna have come to replace. One of them, Jules, is always drunk and therefore completely unaware of her surroundings (which includes the men at the bar leering and grabbing for her) creating the necessary uneasy ambiance. As Liv and Hanna take in Jule’s suggestive dancing on the bar coupled with her lifting of her shirt to be ogled at, followed by her crawling on all fours on the bar with her underwear showing, Liv responds with a smile saying very nonchalantly, “That’ll be us in a few weeks.” Hanna looks rightfully concerned.

Source: Vanity Fair / Jules dances atop the bar.

The Royal Hotel is based on a 2016 documentary called Hotel Coolgardie which tells the true story of two Finnish women in Australia, out of money, sent to work in a remote mining town. This is apparently apart of a practice in which every 3 months, barmaids there are replaced with new women. While the documentary is not meant to be horror, it plays out like this given the sexist circumstances. The women are treated in a degrading manner by the men who frequent the bar and live in a state of fear. To boot, they are at the mercy of the bar owner to be paid and this can come with complications.

Spoilers ahead.

As The Royal Hotel goes on, the men get grubbier. There’s Billy, the perma-drunk and unsavory owner of the bar (Hugo Weaving); Teeth (James Frecheville), a possessive, but not unhelpful man; Matty (Toby Wallace), a charmer, but a deceptively bad man; and the dangerous, lascivious Dolly, Hanna’s nemesis, who is just waiting to pounce on the women. Hanna sniffs him out right away.

What’s clear from the jump, instinctually and almost primally, is that the Royal Hotel is no place for women and the few women that come, the regulars, are complicit in the men’s behavior because they are a product of this environment, save Carol (Ursula Yovich), Billy’s partner and the only hope for Liv and Hanna, but who is also completely unable to affect the power dynamic for the better. There is a pecking order here and despite Carol’s tenure and position as Billy’s girlfriend, she’s at the bottom, often doing the manual work, running the operations and cleaning up Billy’s messes without access to any of the funds, the source of power. Come to think of it, the women are the only ones doing work in this film.

The men who go to the bar, are never seen doing any actual work but rather pass time, hurling crude jokes at one another based on their failed attempts to bed Liv and Hanna and compete non-stop, as if the women aren’t there. It’s like watching animals in the wild (this comes to mind) trying to assert dominance by eliminating threats with the goal of trying to mate with their prey, in this case Hanna and Liv.

A scene from “Hostel: Part II” which came to mind as I watched this film

In the style of Get Out and any Eli Roth-type horror (Hostel: Part II), there are bad decisions being made by the “innocents” coupled with the growing overt sinister elements at play by the perpetrators that have you shouting at the TV, “GET OUT!” and this tension only mounts. Luckily, Hanna keeps her head on straight, a feat in and of itself as the days go on as she’s pushed further and further to the brink - the last sane person left. In the absence of any distractions, you pray that she stays sober.

L: Liv, Hanna and Matty in one of the film’s lighter moments. R: Dolly gazing at Hanna

Where the film fell short was in the character of Liv, who is very much a superficial footnote in the bleak landscape filled with otherwise interesting, albeit in many cases, smarmy characters. It’s hard to comprehend why Hanna would ever be friends with her even if you subscribe to the “opposites attract” theory, you still need some values-based connection. Here, it’s non existent. The film infers some troubled past they are both running from, but then never substantiates or fulfills on that promise. Instead, I found myself wondering at the film’s end why Liv, who boasts a solid history of making poor decisions, would ever make a good one, and how lucky it was that this one good one packed such a punch. Make it count, I suppose.

Billy (Hugo Weaving) and Carol (Ursula Yovich) run The Royal Hotel.

Hanna’s psychological journey during the film and her decision to use physical force (in the form of an ax) against the bad guys was another curious choice. I held hope that her reputation of using strong words and non-violent actions could defeat these thugs, but alas, she had to play by the rules of the [animal] kingdom, I suppose. I’m not faulting her. She had very few options by the end, but one of those included a ride back to Sydney by way of a Nordic guy she met at the beginning [before she trekked to the Royal Hotel] who travels to pick her up and which might have avoided the precarious ending. Then again, back to poor decision-making. It’s contagious. And this film is not one that ends with a guy saving the day. That would not be true to its ethos.

The film’s denouement rang a bit too much Thelma & Louise for me but without the death part - just the female solidarity element of “it’s us against them.” A more fitting end would have been Liv going off with the bad guys, which almost happened any number of times, and Hanna forging a new path, one in which she goes home to the U.S. and uses her experience to become a public defender, preferably one who puts away the bad guys.

Credit: Thelma & Louise