The marketing for The Royal Hotel indicates it’s a thriller/mystery. But the only mystery is why should this movie exists. It reminds me of those independent movies you’d see in the 1990s and 2000s with some names of recognizable actors so you’d rent it. Yet after an hour and a half later, felt like you could’ve spent more time counting bathroom floor tiles.
To say nothing happens in this movie isn’t true. There’s just very little to hold anyone’s interest for the 90 minutes or so. It feels at one point it was supposed to be a thriller but the production ran out of money or a major investor decided they wanted something else. So writer/director Kitty Green scrambled to piece together a movie. This is more of a drama. What little we see typical of thriller is misleading.
Two Americans are backpacking through Australia claiming to be Canadians because they’d get a better reaction from the locals and other tourists. There’s Hanna (Julia Garner) with the same blank expression that made Kristen Stewart famous in the Twilight movies and the ramen noodles hairstyle that Justin Timberlake once had. Her friend, Liv (Jessica Henwick), drinks too much or just enough to be too much for a movie plot device during a later scene. They run out of money and it’s not explained why. But they’re on a cruise ship in Sydney basically making out with any guy they can.
Then, they’re told of the Royal Hotel, a pub in a remote mining town in the Outback needing two workers. At this point, you’re expecting a lot to happen. The pub is forcing women into human trafficking? Or they’re being served up on the menu? Or there’s possibly something more sinister like the pub is the gateway to Hell? Nope. It’s just a dilapidating pub in the middle of nowhere that seems to be the hotspot for all the d-bags who come around.
One of them is Matty (Toby Wallace) who seems to think he’s a total lady’s man even though he looks like half of the dudebros douchebags in this world. This is the second movie I’ve seen this guy in so far this year and he does have a very punchable face. I don’t ever want to see him in another movie ever again even if I live to be 109.
As a matter of fact, not one single male character in this movie is likeable or even believable. It turns out they all get rowdy at the bar and do crazy things like set off fireworks, ram cars into things, fight each other, tell jokes that are sexists and misogynistic. Hanna is offended and wants to leave after one day. Liv decides to tough it out because that’s the way things are.
And that’s the rest of the movie. The men barrel through the pub making a mess while the pub’s owner/proprietor Billy (Hugo Weaving), dismisses it. His wife, Carol (Ursula Yovich) works the kitchen and seems to show some sympathy toward the young women. There’s a scene where Billy’s alcoholism suggests he’s going to turn violent. But he only seems to be an alcoholic when the movie wants to use it to advance the mediocre plot. There’s also suggestion that Billy is a racist as he hasn’t paid a supplier who is Aboriginal in months. Carol is also Aboriginal. And she’s mad at how he’s handling the business. It seems that all Billy does is hire gullible young women for a few weeks at a time until they get tired and leave.
When Hannah and Liv show up, they discover two English young women are there but on their way out. I guess Green was trying to go for a more serious version of Coyote Ugly but set Down Under. It’s based on Hotel Coolgardie, which is a documentary about Finnish young women taking jobs at a pub in Coolgardie, located in Western Australia. I don’t doubt that women in the food-and-drink service industry deal with these issues on a regular basis. I know they do. I’ve heard stories.
I’ve even seen it myself. There’s nothing more disgusting that some slob or dudebro who thinks that the smile and pleasantry in a server or bartender’s voice means more. I was at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Tulsa where some older man hollered so loud when he saw a bartender with a huge cleavage come on the shift. Hannah and Liv never seem believable. This is just a temp job but they’re acting like they’re stuck there indefinitely.
Yet they leave at the end awaiting for the bus to come pick them up. But for some reason that makes no sense, they set fire to the pub. Green is making a movie that is a statement on toxic masculinity but it never really approaches the subject the right way. Billy might be a little chauvinistic but Carol is very sympathetic to the women. Why would they torch these people’s business as it ruins how we feel about them? Green also made Casting JonBenet, an experimental true-crime documentary about the infamous murder, which like this movie, presented some good ideas but failed overall with the delivery.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 