‘The Royal Hotel’ Review – An Uncommonly Powerful Psychological Thriller

The Royal Hotel is a deliberate and pensive thriller that gradually builds so much tension that it’s hard to sit still in your seat. The story is like the Wild West, where anything can happen. It’s a dangerous place for single women. That’s because unwanted tension can quickly snowball into emotional and physical abuse. Writer and director Kitty Green’s (The Assistant) film is a revolving-door character study of toxicity and the psychological toll on their mental health.

The story follows two women in their early twenties from the United States who are on a grand adventure in the land down under. One of them, Liv (Jessica Henwick), is a fun-loving free spirit who consumes life to the fullest. Her best friend, Hanna (Emmy Award winner Julia Garner), is Liv’s counterpoint. Hanna is quiet, intensely stoic, and always cognizant of her surroundings.

To make some more spending money, they take a job for a few short weeks working at The Royal Hotel in the Australian outback. The establishment is remote. The only business is the mine, where the locals work. They tell Liv and Hanna that they may receive some of the aforementioned male attention. Liv jumps in with both feet over her friend’s objections. Hanna follows her anyway, always being her protector.

When they arrive, Carol (Ursula Yovich) picks them up and drives them to the bus station. At the hotel, they climb out of the station wagon and are met by curious and lustful glances from the patrons, like a sizzling steak just being taken off the grill. Carol’s husband/partner Billy (Hugo Weaving) is there, a depressive drunk who has trouble paying his bills. However, he’s no fool, knowing that hiring them to serve drinks in a land devoid of women will keep the patrons coming in for miles.

Green wrote the script with Oscar Redding (Top of the Lake), and the film is an exercise in unwanted sexual attention (USWA) and victimization. The film is an adaptation of Pete Gleeson’s documentary Hotel Coolgardie. This masterful work gives you an in-your-face look at when sexual boundaries are crossed and too easily dismissed. The same approach is taken here, showing how fragile the male ego can be. Once broken, it can lead to anger, frustration, and even self-pity that often land squarely in the center of male toxicity.

There have been sociological studies on USWA, where 20% of women experience it in a survey of inner-city Brisbane nightlife. That’s a city of just over two million people. Coolgardie had 878 people at the last census, increasing the odds tenfold regarding this type of harassment when combined with a desolate location where all human contact causes mental anguish. The leads are then able to show you those effects. That includes anxiety, depression, fear, diminished self-confidence, and when drugs and alcohol become a self-medication crutch.

These are the themes that The Royal Hotel layers into a story in a suspenseful and often thrilling fashion. The film is impeccably cast with a handful of male actors who bring these behaviors to life. You have two “nice” guys, one being Baby Teeth’s Toby Wallace, who plays Matty, whom Hanna takes a liking to. Then there’s a man named Teeth (James Frecheville), the salt of the earth and sweet but mocked when he asks out Liv respectfully. Each has a fascinating arc about the brittle nature of masculinity.

Then there is the character of Dolly, played with a menacing coolness by The Babadook’s Daniel Henshall. He plays the character not with a quick-trigger temper but with a smoldering build that leaves a mark. A man who uses his power and influence, Dolly is that male who’s your classic predator. He makes his victim apologize for his bad behavior, attempting to manipulate women into thinking their feeling of violation is their fault, treating harassment, unwanted touching, and inappropriate comments as a blessing, not a curse.

Henwick is very good here, taking advantage of The Royal Hotel’s very best scenes. (Henwick’s character displays hyperactivity that could be a sign of trauma that the story hints at.) However, it’s Garner’s knockout turn showing the audience various defense mechanisms of abuse that slowly but surely will get under your skin. It’s one of the year’s best performances and likely the most underappreciated when the awards season comes.

The ending of The Royal Hotel may divide fans of psychological thrillers because it understates, defying the genre’s classic conventions. However, that doesn’t detract from the film’s raw and uncommon power.

Kitty Green has made a perfect socially conscious thriller for the #MeToo era. It’s one of the year’s best films.

The Royal Hotel is currently playing in theaters courtesy of NEON. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9zq_4ED-pI]