Two in the Bush

The Royal Hotel (Kitty Green, 2023)

When the trailer to Kitty Green's psychological thriller The Royal Hotel (2023), blipped its way onto my radar over the summer, it evoked serious Wake in Fright (1971) vibes for me. Thankfully, those nightmarish feelings were still present in the full length feature film.

Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) are two young backpackers in Sydney, Australia who wind up broke after partying a bit too hard. Through the aid of a recruitment agency, the pair are offered jobs as barmaids in a remote mining pub in the Outback. With it being such a remote location, full of burly blokes, they're advised to only accept the offer if they're comfortable with receiving "a little male attention". Brillo-haired Hanna, the smarter of the two, accepts the vacancy with trepidation, while the more naive Liv accepts for the simply silly reason of getting to see kangaroos in the wild out there.

The Royal Hotel is essentially a strangers in a strange land type deal. Civilisation hasn't reached every corner of the globe and for our two female leads, they're in for a rude awakening. You can't get any ruder than The Royal Hotel's alcoholic owner Billy, played by a constantly scene stealing Hugo Weaving. Billy is an aggressive type of Aussie, who talks bluntly and calls Hanna "a smart cunt" when talks back to him condescendingly. The culture shock is very real. This clash of worlds is introduced in an amusing way initially, but as the film progresses it delves into far darker and hostile territory. This leads to some incredibly intense scenes throughout the film.

Green's film excels at generating a forboding sense of unease for Hanna and Liv, where you'll be forgiven for thinking this might be a horror film along the likes of the Outback classic Wolf Creek (2005). The film's obvious agenda is to showcase male toxicity in a backwater part of the world and villify them. But The Royal Hotel's overall message is applicable in a far broader context by contrasting the nature of those who are educated and civilised people against the rough around the edges folk eking out a living in a harsh environment.

Julia Garner and Jessic Henwick exhibit good chemistry together in their lead roles. Garner's cautious attitude increases with the same rate as Henwick's recklessness. The supporting cast aren't slouches either. They include: Romper Stomper's Toby Wallace as Kylie's #1 fan in the Outback; Snowtown's John Bunting in strong form as the psychotic Dolly; and lastly, the aformentioned Hugo Weaving who absolutely kills it.

Perhaps the one real flaw was its cop out ending. It's a slow burn psychological thriller, highly atmospheric, so I expect the tightly wound tension to snap in a quick and abrupt manner, that logically provides a believable outcome, but, without going into spoilers, did it really need that awful closing shot? It tarnishes what is otherwise a great film. Still, despite this erroneous error, it's still an overwhelmingly good film for the vast majority of its running time.

Dada Debaser Bonus Feature:

Did not know that The Royal Hotel was inspired by Pete Gleeson's slice of life documentary Hotel Coolgardie (2016). You can bet I was all over it the moment I found out. It's a feature worthy of a review itself as it's equally funny and horrifying with a randomly messed up post script to cap it off. Hotel Coolgardie also makes for an excellent double feature with The Royal Hotel as you can compare the exaggerated levels Kitty Green went with the source material. Ironically, it's very reminiscent of what certain exploitation film directors would do when inspired by real events.