Title – The Royal Hotel (2023) 

Director – Kitty Green (The Assistant) 

Cast – Julia Garner, Jessica Henwick, Hugo Weaving, James Frecheville, Daniel Henshall, Toby Wallace

Plot – Canadian backpackers Hanna (Garner) and Liv (Henwick) take up a job in a rural outback Australian town working at the local pub run by Billy (Weaving) where they see the “real” Australia and deal face to face with a collection of blue collar workers who perhaps harbour nefarious intentions. 

“A fun adventure is all they wanted”

Review by Eddie on 06/12/2023

Like a modern day take on Wake in Fright, Kitty Green’s Australian dramatic thriller The Royal Hotel is a slow-burn tension riddled affair that’s inspired by the eye-opening Aussie documentary Hotel Coolgardie, that chartered the life, times and patrons of a remote pub in the outback of Oz with this fictional take on that examination absolutely a film Tourism Australia will be hoping overseas audiences may not partake in. 

Following Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick’s Canadian backpackers Hanna and Liv, as the two young woman explore Australia and out of money desperation take on work in a remote Australian pub that’s overseen by the alcoholic and mentally checked out Billy (an as per usual scene stealing Hugo Weaving), Royal Hotel is a warts and all type film that is scary in its realistic exploration of the underbelly of Aussie culture but is a film you wish did more with its concept at the same time. 

Overflowing with menace, boiling away motivations and an impending sense of doom, Green can be commended for gifting her film with a foreboding nature few thrillers can tap into but as Hanna and Liv get further acquainted with the locals they are now serving through the pub, many of whom are single males working at nearby mining operations and appear to be more modern day rogue cowboys that working class gentleman, Royal Hotel constantly appears to be waiting for the “big” moment that just never seems to come. 

Sure to leave many disappointed by a sense of what could’ve been, it’s not hard to see what Green was aiming for with her film and likely achieved exactly what she was setting out to explore with many near miss moments and potential outcomes that manage to never fully come to fruition but with a lack of genuine sense of resolution or memorable final act, Royal Hotel fails to become the modern day Australian classic it could’ve been, as well as an insightful and incendiary exploration of the male gaze.

With a finale that is likely to leave many feeling a sense of odd disappointment from what may have been, Royal Hotel’s chance to really shine outside of its pinpoint accurate depiction of small town Australia and those that inhabit it, from the beer loving locales through to the local indigenous population and those that have put down roots to escape everyday reality was with its two central characters but despite committed turns from Garner and Henwick, we never are allowed to get too close to these two young ladies. 

There’s a sense that there’s significant and important backstory to what lead these two friends (of whom we never know if they are long term besties or more recent buddies) to get all the way over to the other side of the world but the film itself and Green’s direction never gifts us the integral threads that could’ve given us more insight into their mindsets or motivations, keeping us at arms length throughout when allowing us in could’ve worked wonders for the story’s rather cold narrative. 

Final Say –

The Royal Hotel has a lot too say and its on screen iteration of the “real” Australia is scary in its accuracy but with two central characters we never get to warm too and a narrative that builds to an outcome that never arrives, Green’s film fails to reach the heights it at times appears to be climbing towards. 

3 jars of snakes out of 5