User reviews

Felt compelled to leave a review after watching this last night and seeing how many people left poor reviews. All i knew going into it was that it was filmed in Australia and i'm a fan of JG so would watch it regardless of much else.

Enjoyed this from start to finish. For some, movies are about what they make you feel and think. If you enjoy character studies about people, place, time or circumstances then this might be up your alley. It's not a happy movie nor a true horror which is probably how many have been left disappointed. Indie drama/thriller would better describe it.

It's bleak and scary for the fact that human nature is often something to fear more than anything pretend. I had that sick feeling of unease through throughout (which is something i really appreciate from such movies).

I would watch it again however my partner (male) watching with me was waiting for something bigger to happen and felt the end was anti climatic - 2 different views.

This movie is a dramatic interpretation of the documentary film "hotel coolgardie" (I reviewed that also on IMDb)

It tells the story of two backpackers travelling through Australia and they take up a job via a job agency (very common in Australia backpacking community). Only downside the hotel is in south Australia in a mining location.

They are met with a culture shock of how rough the men are and how the women have to cope with chauvinism.

The movie portrays real life in the mining towns of southern Australia where the pub is the main gathering location and where men drink far too much.

There are a few scenes where artistic license is used to make for a more dramatic movie but all in all it's a true reflection of the experiences many female travellers have.

I recommend to watch and then view "Hotel Coolgardie" to compare.

Strangely, I had this gut feeling that I'd enjoy this movie, solely based on the poster, even before reading the synopsis or watching the trailer. I was then worried I'd set my expectations too high, so I lowered them a bunch. At the time of writing this, there are fewer than 20 IMDb reviews, most of them being 1/10 ratings, which makes me feel somewhat delusional for not disliking it.

Now, let's be clear, not much happens in this film. If you're looking for a riveting storyline, this ain't it. The characters lack depth, and while there are hints about why they left 'Canada', we never really learn much about them. It's implied there's more to them, but never shown/said. Surprisingly, I wasn't annoyed by this, just as I wasn't bothered by the lack of things happening. I genuinely enjoyed it and felt a detailed backstory wasn't necessary.

The biggest issue lies in its marketing as a "thriller," which likely skewed people's expectations, accentuated by Julia Garner's Ozark fame. If I knew it was meant to be a thriller beforehand, I might have disliked it too. It's more of an indie-style, maybe psychological film, so forget any notions of it being a thriller; that's like when movies throw in a jump scare and eerie music and slapping the "horror" label on it when it isn't. I hate that.

It reminds me of movies like "American Honey," where I felt like I was actually in the movie, experiencing everything alongside the characters. I remember seeing a lot of bad reviews for that one too, even though I enjoyed it. "The Royal Hotel" will likely be a love-it-or-hate-it kind of thing. Many people don't like it, and I get why when I hear their reasons, but personally, I really enjoyed it. It's not a mind-blowing story, as I mentioned, but it held my attention throughout. I was glued to the screen. Most of it takes place in one location, yet it feels like so much is going on.

The whole first hour and then some felt like a build-up to the last 20 minutes. There wasn't much character development early on, but they grew on me as the movie progressed. There's a sense that things will go south when the girls are left alone. The tension built up beautifully for about 1hr15, then unraveled in just 10 minutes. Climax felt short lived, then again it is a short film, think I've just been watching a lot of 2-3 hour movies lately. Strangely enough, and I probably get some flak for this, but I genuinely enjoyed this more than "Killers of the Flower Moon," even though Scorsese's film had much more to it. Underscores the importance of pacing I guess.

It feels like they created the characters first and then figured out how the plot could evolve from there, rather than starting with a story. It's a raw film and disturbing for a guy to watch how the men behave in it. There's a warning about the remote setting and men at the beginning. I love how the movie went about depicting bad characters as bad characters, in stark contrast to Barbie for instance. The message is unmistakable, yet the film doesn't hammer it home repeatedly; it's conveyed through actions, not words.

I believe that Barbie was a good movie, and if it had followed a similar approach in portraying its characters, it could have conveyed its message effectively without receiving the backlash it did regarding how the 'Kens' were depicted. The same principle applies to portraying good guys as good guys and showcasing strong female leads. I think the argument against guys not liking badass female leads is unfounded. We've had iconic characters like Lara Croft, avatar Korra, The Bride from Kill Bill, Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games, Camille Preaker from Sharp Objects, and most recently, Supergirl from The Flash( a lot of guys literally hated the movie but her). Anyway I side tracked big time lol but back to "The Royal Hotel," I also enjoyed the two leads and how they had a compelling and badass conclusion.

The acting was fantastic and believable, perhaps the best from the two leads I've seen. Everything felt genuine, and the plot evolved naturally based on the characters' decisions and actions, making it all the more believable. In my opinion, the best aspect of this movie is how everything progresses naturally because of it.

I loved it. But a lot of people seem to not like the movie so maybe I'm delusional one here. I guess I'll add this to my list of guilty pleasures.

It is a metaphor for women in their workplaces. If you think it is too over the top and exaggerated, ask the women around you (girlfriends/wives/friends), and they'll tell you that it could easily be passed for any corporate offices in any of the metropolitan, at least their fear and constant guard. Places where women are constantly objectified, harassed, discriminated against, and preyed upon. The men in sharp suits and pleasant demeanors are not too different from the seemingly barbaric and boorish miners of the royal hotel, who are so ignorant that they don't know the difference between harassment and harmless flirting, and the concept of consent is alien to them. Any of them can be a potential sex offender - a molester or, worse, a rapist. To survive in this world, women have to constantly watch their moves, read their intentions, and carefully choose (curate and refine) their own actions, words, and even body language so as not to unintentionally encourage unsolicited advances, on top of all this, they have to do their work effectively and efficiently. No wonder women excel at multitasking. Oh, the only surety of survival is...you burn the whole effing place down.

Someone said recently that audiences were more appreciative of good movies 50 years ago, and (by implication) that current audiences don't know quality when they see it. Jesus H. Christ, when seeing the user reviews here that is really and starkly borne out!

This is a perfectly well-made and often chilling drama about toxic masculinity; a realistic portrayal of how things can veer off-track for anybody; a well-acted and believable depiction of culture shock and the psychological problems of isolation and weltschmerz.

Yet most of the reviewers here clearly weren't prepared for this type of movie, and clearly wanted something very different. Well, why did you watch this, you bleedin' nincompoops? Why didn't you turn it off after half an hour? Why did you even bother to write a review? That's on you, peeps. Get better at picking your content.

Kitty Green's drama, The Royal Hotel is a slow burn that never ignites. The film follows two young Canadian backpackers, Liv (Jessica Henwick) and Becky (Julia Garner), who take on bartending jobs at a remote pub in the Australian Outback. The pub is owned by the enigmatic Bill (Hugo Weaving), and the clientele is made up of a rough-and-tumble bunch of miners.

As the film progresses, Liv and Becky find themselves increasingly isolated and vulnerable. The men at the pub are increasingly aggressive and predatory, and the women are forced to constantly navigate their way through dangerous and uncomfortable situations.

The Royal Hotel is a well-acted film, with particularly strong performances from Henwick and Garner. However, the film's slow pace and lack of suspense eventually become its undoing. The film is more interested in creating a sense of atmosphere and dread than in telling a compelling story. Unfortunately, it never quite succeeds in either.

One of the biggest problems with The Royal Hotel is that it never really gives the audience a reason to care about the two main characters. Liv and Becky are thinly drawn characters, and their motivations are never fully explored. As a result, it's difficult to feel any real tension or suspense when they are in danger.

Another problem with the film is its pacing. The Royal Hotel is a very slow-moving film, and it often feels like nothing is happening. There are long stretches of the film where the only thing happening is Liv and Becky serving drinks to the miners. This makes the film feel very tedious and boring at times.

Finally, The Royal Hotel's climax is both unsatisfying and confusing. The film builds up to a major confrontation between Liv, Becky, and the miners, but the climax is ultimately resolved in a very anti-climactic way. The film ends with a number of unanswered questions, and the audience is left feeling confused and frustrated.

Overall, The Royal Hotel is a disappointing film. It's a well-acted film with a great atmosphere, but it's also a slow-moving and unsatisfying film. But I wouldn't call this film a thriller as it offers no thrills or much suspense for the audience. The film literally made me yawn a few times during its runtime.

The Royal Hotel finds director/co-writer Kitty Green stranding Julia Garner in another incredibly hostile workplace rife with misogyny and taking it to terrifying new heights. It's an engrossing film that's uneasy from its early moments and it only gets worse until the eventual breaking point and a really strong ending.

Julia Garner is fantastic, she has to spend the majority of the film in a cautious state, never feeling truly safe even in the few lighter moments. All of this is exacerbated by Jessica Henwick constantly under playing the risks, increasing the tension massively when she's unaware just how bad everything is getting.

Kitty Green's direction is great, there's more music in this compared to The Assistant but it once again mostly relies on diegetic audio to make everything feel more real in the most uncomfortable ways. Being in a more open space this time also allows it to be a bit more cinematic and make the vast Australian outback feel claustrophobic.

This was a decent enough film on its own merits, however I urge anyone who enjoyed it, or even thought they were going to enjoy it but didn't, to watch Hotel Coolgardie. This is the true story documentary that the film is based on. The film is set in a very similar place, but the characters in the film, rough as they might be supposed to be, are far more clean cut than the people in real life. They are also far less sinister than the real life people, albeit it's more subtle in the documentary. Hotel Coolgardie really shows the pitfalls of isolation and toxic masculinity, and paints a really frightening portrait of rural Australia.

There is a 2016 documentary about Hotel Coolgardie, an out of the way Australian spot where foreign backpackers can work for a time to earn money, but also where two Finnish backpackers faced inhumane treatment while working as bartenders.

This movie, "The Royal Hotel" is a fictional story that was inspired by Hotel Coolgardie. It starts in Sydney, where Canadian friends, Julia Garner as Hanna and Jessica Henwick as Liv, find themselves without funds. There in fact is a real Work and Travel program in Australia for travelers between the ages of 18 and 30 who want to earn and travel. So the two friends take advantage of that.

They get a bus ticket to a remote spot, they end up at the fictional Royal Hotel which has rooms where they stay, but is primarily a pub. The owner is played excellently by "Matrix" veteran, Hugo Weaving.

Some things happen but the movie is really about the unpleasantness that female bar workers often must contend with. As the filmmakers explain, it doesn't have to be in the Australian outback, it could be in a Manhattan bar, as rowdy men get boozed up and threaten to cross the line in behavior.

While I don't rate this movie very highly I found it interesting and the main actors are all very good. At home on DVD from my public library, my wife read the description and skipped.

It's an Australian psychological buddy movie set in current times in the Australian Outback. It follows two young women touring Australia who run out of money and need to take temporary work at the isolated Royal Hotel.

Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) identify as young Canadian women who run out of money in Sydney. Liv is outgoing, while Hanna is more cautious. They agree to take temporary work and travel jobs as bar servers in a rural mining area.

When they arrive after a long bus ride, they meet Carol (Ursula Yovich) and Billy (Hugo Weaving), who own the bar and live in a nearby trailer. Billy immediately uses abusive language and turns out to be an alcoholic. Carol, an Indigenous woman, cooks and tries to manage Billy. Hanna and Liv soon meet some of the scary regulars at the bar, including Matty (Toby Wallace), Teeth (James Frechville), and Dolly (Daniel Henshall). Almost everyone overuses alcohol. Many of the men are abusive, use misogynistic language, and make increasing sexual demands. The film's climax occurs when Billy and Carol need to be away from the bar for a while.

"The Royal Hotel" is a depressing movie. Garner, Henwick, and Yovich are excellent and nuanced in their roles. The male characters give solid performances but are incredibly repulsive. There is no message in the film other than illustrating that men living in relative isolation can easily become beasts.

Two canadians, hanna and liv (julia garner and jessica henwick), are backpacking across beautiful australia. When they run out of money, they sign up for a work program. Which seems to be in a bar, where everyone is rude, or at least abrupt. In the middle of nowhere. They start to warm up to the locals. And the locals slowly warm up to them. Some of them. Keep an eye out for billy the drunk... hugo weaving was tick, in priscilla. And in a bunch of hobbit films. But when a substance abuse problem catches up with one of them, and the men of the town get out of control, things are changed forever. It's pretty good! Kind of a lesson in human nature. Directed by kitty green.

I read the description of this movie expecting either a drama or a crime movie, but I got neither. What I did get to see was a portrait of an Australian pub. Period. Sometimes a bit rowdy as in any pub. And that's it. What the what?

The bad: this story is going nowhere. 2 female pub employees serve beer and ocassionally hang out with some of the pub visitors. Wanna watch that for 90 minutes long? I got bored.

There is a final to this story that does not make sense at all, making me further question the capabilities of the writer of this script.

Kinda tedious. Kinda lame. Nothing much happens except some common pub rowdiness. And that is suppose to be the basis of an entire movie?

Not any good then? Jennifer Garner is a great actress. SHE was THE reason I started watching this movie, but her performance cant cover up the simple fact that this story is void of any drama or thrill. What a dud.

Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) are traveling best friends far from home. They are on a party boat in Sydney, Australia. With money trouble, they take up jobs in a remote mining town. They are barmaids working for Billy (Hugo Weaving) who is drunk most of the time. The town is full of drunken men and not many women.

I want Hanna and Liv to be smarter for the sake of the story. I can't believe that they didn't get the Dickens joke. It's the type of joke to accentuate somebody's stupidity and the movie does exactly that. I do like Hanna's reason for not drinking. I did expect the story to go a different way. It takes a sharp turn near the end which I don't mind. I would like something more during that stormy night so the payoff could be more satisfying. It sets up a couple of things that never pays off. The color coding of the beers should be something but it goes nowhere. I thought this story had a darker back story especially with the British chicks. This movie could be something but it stops short.

Trying to think of a positive male role model in this film. Hmmmm, nope, not even the man of the old couple celebrating their anniversary... he was a bit of a coward. So there's about 30-40 men in this film, and 5 male leads - all of them are either drunkard, violent, weak, sexist, stupid, cowardly or sexually aggressive. Of the 3 main female leads, they are heroic, brave, kind, long suffering, wise and strong. The only other 2 women are in it for a fleeting moment and are seen to be promiscuous.

So what we have here is another well made, well shot, well acted, anti-masculine film.

Watch it and judge for yourselves, the narrative of many indie (and mainstream) films nowadays contains some sort of anti male agenda where the men are almost entirely portrayed in a negative light.

What was this?a thriller you say?, nah it pretty much has no thrills at all , it is well enough acted but just when you think something is going to take a dramatic turn it just fizzles out.

The story of Hanna ans Liv , two backpackers who take a job in a pub in the australian middle of nowhere to get some money behind them whilst travelling had potential but it is never really realised Liv is fairly flat , you dont learn much about her but its Hanna who is by far the most irritating character in the whole movie, so dull she makes Kristen Stewart seem like Coco the clown.

The guys who frequent the pub are just as you would think them to be, but again any sense of menace is lost as the dialogue and the plotting pull back and leave you wondering if anything is going to actually happen, i mean you might as well go and listen to some pub bores down at your local for all the good this movie does I was left with a massive feeling of who cares?regarding the whole thing.

The final scenes are laughable and cringe inducing, Thelma and Louise they ain't You have been warned.

This a common case where the Metacritic score is far more useful than the user score. It is a solid genre flick with two strong lead role performances and a very well selected supporting cast of creeps. Kitty Green is in full control of this film from start to finish, putting the audience in a terribly uncomfortable situation that seems extreme at times but at the same time all too familiar. You will not have to have backpacked the Australian Outback to relate to what these two girls are experiencing. You have either been in their shoes at one time or have at the uncomfortable experience of witnessing someone in their shoes. With a tight 1.5 hour run time it is well worth a watch. 8/10.

Canadians "Hanna" (Julia Garner) and her best mate "Liv" (Jessica Henwick) take jobs working in a remote outback bar where they are expecting to make some extra cash to fund their holiday. They arrive, though, to discover that the "Royal Hotel" is anything but royal.... It's run by the curmudgeonly "Billy" (Hugo Weaving), his long-suffering friend "Carol" (Ursula Yovich) and is largely populated by lively, chauvinist, blokes who are partial to some "Dickens" cider... The girls are clearly out of their depth initially, but can they find a way to assert themselves in the face of increasingly unambiguous sexually threatening behaviour? Daniel Henshall's slightly menacing "Dolly" becomes chief amongst their protagonists, but there is also the slightly manipulative "Matty" (Toby Wallace) and their alcoholic boss to contend with too. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting here. Clearly the toxic mix of raging male hormones and pretty much unlimited booze creates a fairly hostile environment for the women, but the story sort of plateaus aground a denouement that really disappoints. There's nothing really new here, nor is there anything particularly innovative. It plays rather unkindly to mid-Australian stereotype and sort of fizzles out at the denouement. It had potential, but somehow Kitty Green seemed uncertain as to how to conclude and so we end up with something unremarkable and frankly rather weak. Garner and Henwick are adequate, but that's about all I can say about this mediocre offering, sorry.

Set in a remote Australian town surrounded by nothing but Outback as far as the eye can see, this slow-burning social thriller focuses on a pair of US backpackers who have to take a job at an isolated dive bar when they run out of money to fund their vacation. Their rowdy new workplace attracts a consistent clientele comprised almost solely of horny grubs with no respect for women and an unmistakable air of danger emanating from their every pore. As soon as our protagonists step foot in the place, something just feels off. This is something that one of them acknowledges almost instantly, the sensibly suspicious Hanna (Julia Garner), before she is made to feel overly cautious by her much more free-spirited companion, Liv (Jessica Henwick), and decides to stick out her new employment instead of immediately running for the hills. As their situation shifts from uncomfortable to life-threatening, this disparity in self-preservation skills starts to wear on the pair's relationship. Constantly bombarded with every form of sexism imaginable, the pair react to their new environment in entirely different ways. Liv's cavalier attitude to her own safety becomes increasingly worrisome and frustrating, both for us and for a consistently bravely defiant Hanna. The closer 'The Royal Hotel (2023)' gets to its finale, the more overt its danger becomes. It evolves from creeping domestic dread to all-out edge-of-your-seat horror, even if the tone never quite shifts to become the "nerve-shredding thriller" some of the marketing seems to promise. The narrative plays out like a drama with some incredibly suspenseful and uncomfortable scenes, which helps it to remain grounded for its majority. At the same time, it does become fairly overt in its misogyny and this runs the risk of diluting its authenticity. This level of sexism certainly does exist, though, and it's worth exploring just as much as the subtler, arguably more insidious forms that tend to be more common in everyday life. Furthermore, the piece manages to explore both sides of that equation rather well, even if it never quite evolves into the full-blown genre piece its ending seems to imply it was destined to be. It's the sort of thing that grows in power after it's over, staying with you thanks to its keenly disconcerting subject matter and ability to put you in its protagonists' shoes. It's grounded and believable, mainly thanks to its solid direction, assured screenplay and all around great performances (including a surprise appearance from Hugo Weaving). It's an effectively unsettling drama-come-thriller that keeps you engaged for its entire duration and comes to a satisfyingly chaotic conclusion.