The Royal Hotel

It's very well done, but I wish the story had more of an arc instead of just kinda... ending.

Grimy realistic tale set in the Aussie outback that has a sense of foreboding and builds tension right from the start. Don’t expect an American style slasher - it’s far more subtle and sinister than that. Definitely worth the 90 minute runtime,

Dripping in the stale, old booze smell of toxic masculinity, The Royal Hotel is a gender-politics driven drama about the unsettling, sneaking and sinister nature with which some men conduct themselves and operate around women. Tropes are subverted, knights-in-shining-armor are only acting in self interest and the granular misogyny entrenched in our daily life is put on full display with no smoke and mirrors to cover it's presence. While there is very little subtley to it's delivery, The Royal Hotel is a gripping drama that wears its feminist message on its sleeve, and its tight 90 minute runtime leaves little room to breathe. If that sounds like your bag, and you're also partial to a scowly performance from Juila Garner, give this one a whirl.

What Ruth Langmore did on her gap year.

What? The movie ended when it was just about to get good???

Fuck this hotel. I would cancel my reservation and book something else. It is scary. sheeyit.

People are crazy. They need Jesus. Dont drink too much youre gonna be crazy and all the neighbours gonna hate you for real for real lifes hard but thats the deal.

I don't want to go to Australia.

This movie did a really good job in putting you into the shoes of the 2 lead characters. Every action feels like it'll lead to something sinister down the road. Lots of unexpected turns. A very solid, engaging, tight claustrophobic thriller that slowly closes in on you. Henwick and Garner absolutely kill it, and Hugo Weaving as the drunk, incompetent bar owner was perfect. So many characters that you want to trust and like but can't fully commit to, like I'm sure how the girls felt. There's a constant and balanced sense of uneasiness that was pretty unique.

Competently made, but its discussion of gender politics feels disingenuous and unbalanced. The movie tries to get away with how it depicts male behavior by setting the movie in the Australian outback, but the major leaps it asks for still ring to me as false. There’s nothing wrong with the dialogue or acting, it’s entirely the fault of the direction and story. For what it’s trying to do, all of the characters are simply too one dimensional. That could work if you throw in a layer of artifice, like _Barbie_ for example; however it stretches believability with this more realistic, grounded tone. As a result, a lot of of the (implied) tension didn’t really resonate with me either once it decides to go full thriller mode. Again, it’s not a terrible film, but it reeks of the wrong kind of feminism.

4.5/10