Allied Vaughn
“We’re Canadian… everyone loves Canadians!”
That might be the case, but people have a funny way of showing it in this slow-build Australian psychological thriller.
There is a long tradition of Australian exploitation (or Oz-sploitation) movies; there’s something about the bleakly beautiful landscape of the outback and the isolated communities dotted sporadically throughout that invite twisted tales of paranoia and horror. There are no giant razorbacks or inbred cannibals here, but the “monsters” are arguably just as bad.
In Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel, Canadian backpackers Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) run out of money in Sydney and are decide to work as live-in barmaids at a remote boozer in the middle of nowhere.
As you might imagine, the titular Royal Hotel is somewhat less than palatial, a raucous and rough and ready watering hole for miners and engineers.
Gruff alcoholic pub landlord Billy (a barely recognisable Hugo Weaving) sets the tone for their stay by greeting the girls with liberal use of the c-word; what begins as casual sexism and inappropriate jokes from the pissed-up punters soon develops into outright micro-aggressions, harassment and worse.
Their predecessors behind the bar, two English girls whom we never actually see sober (!), throw themselves whole-heartedly into drunken celebrations on their last night, pawed and ogled by the regulars whilst they are barely able to stand. (Hanna takes a chilling phone call from one of them after she was last seen driving off with creepy local Dolly…)
Although Liv initially accepts much of this behaviour as harmless banter or culture clash, Hanna soon realises something is very wrong and wants out- the “fresh meat” graffiti on a wheelie bin speaks volumes.
The regulars include a gauche, awkward man-boy, the hulking, sensitive Teeth and the sinister Dolly, whose seething resentment and anger boil just under the surface- alcohol is the trigger for much of the bad behaviour here, but the root cause runs much deeper. The Royal Hotel’s men clearly don’t believe in boundaries of any kind, lurking threateningly behind bedroom doors and growing bolder and bolder still. The oppressive atmosphere and sense of impending threat builds towards an inevitable conclusion.
Will Hanna and Liv make it out alive? You’ll have to watch to find out…
You can’t really describe The Royal Hotel as “enjoyable”, but it is certainly well put together, suspenseful and has some interesting things to say about sexism and drawing the line over acceptable behaviour. Although it’s much more naturalistic than Alex Garland’s “Men”, it covers much the same themes of toxic masculinity. We see several different flavours of toxic men here ranging from the “nice guy” and the deep sensitive guy to the total bastard, but whatever tactics they use, they all objectify and pursue women with an alarming sense of entitlement, considering them as something to be owned.
As a wise man once said, chivalry is protecting a woman from everyone’s unwanted advances except their own…
Sure, this is no Razorback or Wake in Fright, but it’s certainly an effective slice of Aussie thriller.
