The Royal Hotel
Overview
The Royal Hotel is a 2023 psychological thriller film directed by Kitty Green, starring Julia Garner as Hanna, a young American woman who takes a job at a remote bar in the Australian outback. The film is based on the 2016 documentary Hotel Coolgardie. Hanna and her friend, Liv (Jessica Henwick), are backpacking in Australia. They run out of money, and they take a job as barmaids at the Royal Hotel, a dingy, isolated pub in a mining town. The pub is filled with rowdy, aggressive, and sexually predatory male miners. The film is a tense, uncomfortable, and deeply unsettling exploration of gender dynamics, power, and the threat of male violence. Julia Garner gives a powerful performance as a woman who is constantly on edge. The film was a critical success, praised for its performances and its suspenseful direction.
