The Royal Hotel is a masterwork of tension

All great films are released in a dialogue with something that is happening in culture at a given moment.

Director Kitty Green has an uncanny ability to release films that are in dialogue with the public consciousness as the 2019 #MeToo drama The Assistant showed, and she has repeated the trick with The Royal Hotel.

The film sees Green reunite with Julia Garner following their collaboration on The Assistant, and rising British star Jessica Henwick steps into a leading role after years as a supporting player in the likes of Glass Onion, The Matrix Resurrections and The Force Awakens. 

Garner and Henwick are two young backpackers who enjoy their Australian getaway a little too much and must resort to working in a remote pub in the Australian outback to earn some cash.

The two young women, Hanna and Liv, soon become the focus of unwanted attention from the sleazy male patrons, and the film simmers along nicely until it explodes.

Green and co-writer Oscar Redding used the 2016 documentary Hotel Coolgardie as the basis for the film, and the most disturbing thing about The Royal Hotel is that the issues raised in the documentary are still as depressingly relevant and timely in 2023 as it was then.

The Australia that Irish people think of from Home and Away or Neighbours is not the Australia presented in The Royal Hotel, with sun-kissed beaches, kangaroos and beautiful landscapes teased but just out of reach.

Indeed, the film has more in common with the Australia presented by Peter Weir in his seminal Australian New Wave work than it does Summer Bay.

Green, an Aussie herself, manages to weaponise what we think of Australia and makes it a villain in the same way Scorsese uses New York as an uncaring vortex of chaos.

The Australia of this film is less Men At Work or Crocodile Dundee, and more the world of Mad Max pre-apocalypse.

The Australian Outback depicted in this film is a remote and desolate place where empathy is a currency.

The little slices of humanity in an otherwise dreary and intense film allow the viewer to put their head above the water again before submerging into the bleakness.

The Royal Hotel might be the only film this year that features not one, but two Kylie Minogue needle drops.

Garner, who received pretty much every accolade going for her work on Ozark, proves once again that she is one of the best young actors working today.

Garner has an uncanny ability to change the temperature or mood of a scene based on a facial reaction, and the masterstroke of the writing is having Hanna being the only sane person in the middle of a tsunami of testosterone.

The woman having her concerns ignored and being the only sane voice is a trope as old as Hollywood itself, with Hitchcock deploying this device in Suspicion back in 1941, and the horror of the film is realising that Hanna is not being listened to.

Henwick does unsung work as Liv, dismissing Hanna’s concerns purely out of self-interest and not wanting to bring the mood down.

Henwick does a tremendous job of trying to convince us that her character is actually having a great time among the sleaze and unease, and gradually begins to drop her guard as the film progresses.

It is a treat when great actors are totally in tune with the script they are reading from, and the film is worth recommending on the strength of the performances alone.

Aussie star Hugo Weaving, best known for his legendary turn in The Matrix, provides great colour as bar owner Billy, dialling the surly factor up to 11. 

If you need a textbook definition of the word “gruff”, Weaving in this movie is it.

What The Royal Hotel does exceptionally well is pacing.

Clocking in just under 90 minutes, the film dedicates half an hour per act, with the build-up, the conflict, and the resolution all given the same amount of time.

Green shows real restraint in not letting the film fly off the handle too early, and when it does, it feels fully earned.

The unspoken unease and walking on eggshells to avoid setting someone off helps contribute to a tense atmosphere that gives you a pain in your stomach.

When the eruption finally happens, it is fully earned.

The combination of Green and Garner, which proved so effective in The Assistant, is a winning combo once again, and we would not be opposed to further collaborations between the two.

In Garner, Green has the ideal star to convey her message – she is mad as hell, and she is not going to take it anymore.