Popular reviews

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  Review by David Sims ★★★½ 13

  I understood all the slang in this because I watch so much Bluey

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★★★

  Following 2019’s deeply unnerving “The Assistant” with another razor-sharp Julia Garner collaboration, Australian filmmaker Kitty Green has decided to strand her favorite actress in one of the few places on Earth more dangerous for a young woman than Harvey Weinstein’s production office: A shithole bar on the border of an ultra-remote mining town so deep within the Australian outback that no one there has even heard of the #MeToo movement. Welcome to “The Royal Hotel.”

  The good news is that Garner’s character isn’t alone; Hanna’s on an open-ended vacation with her friend Liv (Jessica Henwick) when the two run out of money on a party boat in Sydney and decide to sign up for the last Work & Travel job available.…

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  Review by Ella Kemp ★★★★½

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           women
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  Review by evilstyless ★★½ 2

  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 this film 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.

  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.

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★ 2

  After really admiring the deadening, anxiety-inducing monotony of Green's last film The Assistant, which very effectively managed to locate the infuriating powerlessness at the intersection of precarious labor and gendered abuse in film industry offices I went into this one pretty excited to see her reteam with Garner to riff on work travel programs and service work which both have their fair share of predatory behavior. And I think a lot of it is fairly well-observed here (if maybe a little eagerly underlined), dropping the girls into a grimy, remote Australian mining town dive pub and slowly watching their financial desperation take precedent over their comfort limits and willingness to entertain "male attention" as the casual leering, sexist jokes/attitudes and…

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  Review by Kit Lazer ★★★★ 4

  A razor’s edge thriller about two women trying to survive the horrors of…existing? Jessica Henwick is entrancing, Julia Garner is a lit fuse. Go see it.

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  Review by Brian Formo ★★★★

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  Very tense. No man is trustworthy, not even the quiet old guy at the rowdiest bar. You’re just waiting for the shoe to drop for 70 minutes. Thriller Filmmaking as strong as old socks. The subversive nature of how Kitty Green is using your expectation of the most vile to happen is a strong point. It’s why this works. Constant threats where there should be space. An invasion. If you’re disappointed that it doesn’t go full horror movie the question would then become why did you expect that to happen? That’s the scary stuff. That’s why it works.

  Glenda (who needs a beer!! and who gets the last laugh to close the movie) is the secret mvp.

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  Review by Goin2theMoovies ★ 15

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  I spent the entire film just waiting for something to happen. And then it ended.

  There wasn’t anything fundamentally wrong with the film. The acting and directing were quite excellent. The background and location was good, it was just the story sort of slow burned to nowhere. 

  The girls basically got themselves into a toxic environment and only one had the foresight to see it unraveling, while the other was blind to her surroundings. We were never really brought into what kind of world they were really involved in, just that it was spiraling out of control and the undertones were that it wasn’t anything good.

  When you mix toxicity, narcissism, and lots and lots of free flowing alcohol, it’s…

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  Review by Jay ★★★ 3

  always nice to see eivind from worst person in the world

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  Review by Andre’u ★★★ 1

  I would’ve swung that axe around on the first night, truth be told. Except with steadier grip and accurate aim.

  A lot of bottled up rage in here, folks!

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  Review by matt lynch ★★

  Kitty Green 0/2. The thudding one-note obviousness robs it of any ounce of tension, and that last shot is out of an entirely different (somehow worse) movie. Henwick and Garner innocent though.

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  Review by Kevflix And Chill ★★★★ 5

  Love the idea of a Kitty Green-Julia Garner spiritual trilogy. While The Assistant brilliantly simmers in the micro-aggressions of a male dominated work environment, The Royal Hotel deals much more in the macro-aggressions (so to speak). Green again expertly builds this terrifying atmosphere where it truly feels like there’s no place that’s safe. (Maybe there isn’t). Read that Green would like to “blow it up a little bit” for the third one…….. Julia Garner, you better hold on to your f🤩king hat. 

  2023 Ranked

  Degrees of Kevin Bacon: 2
  1. Jessica Henwick and Bill Murray in On the Rocks
  2. Bill Murray and Kevin Bacon in Wild Things