Kitty Green and Julia Garner collaborated on the 2019 film The Assistant about a young woman who is increasingly taken advantage of on her job as an assistant to a New York film producer. Her latest film The Royal Hotel, even though it takes place on the other side of the world, isn’t much different in context compared to her first narrative film. They both have similar themes of misogyny.  

Hannah (Julia Garner, The Assistant) and Liv (Jessica Henwick, Glass Onion) are two young Canadian women who are looking to get away from their everyday lives at home. So they travel to the furthest place they can think of, Australia, to have a good time and forget about their home. They’re having such a good time partying they run out of money. So they get a job at a remote hotel in the Australian Outback, and they get more than what they bargained for. 

At first, these two young women have to acclimate to a different way of living. The cultural differences are very prevalent at this remote hotel. Their boss Billy (Hugo Weaving) is a drunkard and takes advantage of the girls. He drinks away his profits and doesn’t pay his bills. This rubs the girls and his wife the wrong way. This reminds me of so many men I’ve known over the years. Not to mention my father in a way. It’s sad what too much drinking does to men and women.

Green seems to have a thing about making men look bad. This film is a little different from The Assistant in that regard but it still focuses on misogyny and men who can take no for an answer. This film takes place in such a remote location, so there aren’t many women around except those who work at the bar, and the local workforce from the nearby mine is filled with pent-up sexual rage. 

At first, this film comes across as an ad for travel and then it turns into a film about what you shouldn’t do. The director Green and the writers including her want to hammer home women’s rights in these two films she has made. Both have themes of abuse and misogyny against women. Both show how women rebel against their so-called oppressors being powerful, or in this case, drunk and horny men. It has a great message in both movies. A lot of young women should watch these films as a double feature. 

The Royal Hotel starts out as one thing and turns into something else entirely. These two young women want to try and live their lives up and enjoy themselves instead they get caught up in something crazy and wild they didn’t expect. There is a cultural difference in foreign countries and sometimes Americans or in this case Canadians take this for granted. Both Garner and Hrnwick are fine in these roles, but it’s the direction and writing by Green and company that is the real hero here. I for one can’t wait what potshots Green takes at the Y chromosome population next time.

3 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen