"Wouldn't hurt you to smile a bit," is a wince-inducing line. Its variations are known too well to most, if not every, woman on earth, and Kitty Green makes ample use of it in her latest excavation of toxic male culture.
Yet where her narrative debut, The Assistant, takes place in the shiveringly cool office of a Weinstein-esque producer, The Royal Hotel simmers with the heat of oppressive testosterone at a pub in the Australian Outback. That is, until it boils over with cathartic female rage.
Julia Garner reteams with Green in this discomforting psychological thriller as Hanna, an American backpacker travelling with her best pal Livvy, played with cheeky assurance by Jessica Henwick. Their bougie sojourn in Sydney is cut short after Livvy runs out of money. The only paid work they can get is at the hotel that names this film, so, despite Hanna's misgivings about the remote location, and the large population of male labourers, they head off into the unknown.
Hanna's unease increases the minute they arrive at the rundown pub. She silently takes in the dusty location, the isolation of which is established with superwide angles, but the claustrophobic atmosphere heightens once they get past a few ogling male punters and into the dilapidated drinking hole.
If this is a two-hander then Henwick drew the short straw, as the script, co-written by Green with Oscar Redding, is far more invested in Hanna's psychological turmoil. Where Livvy seems to embrace their male-dominated circumstances, for reasons not altogether explained, her friend is almost continually on edge. Garner tosses between anxious and defiant with sharp precision. Is she being oversensitive? Or is she being realistic about the clear and present danger? Faced with Hugo Weaving's belligerent, alcoholic boss Billy, and the attentions of both Jack-the-lad boozer Matty (Toby Wallace) and sinister regular Dolly, I'm leaning towards the latter.
That's largely in part because of the male cast, who exhibit the shifting manners and menace of these unpredictable, almost always inebriated men to visceral perfection. One minute butter wouldn't melt; the next they're muttering "f**k off" and "bitch" to the women for not putting out. The ebbs and flows of fun and fear maintain a nervy pace that steps up a notch in an explosive final act.
The Royal Hotel wouldn't get a good review on Trip Advisor but as a film, it's a searing comment on contemporary gender politics, skilfully told and exquisitely performed.
