International Art House Series
Kitty Green's gritty, nail-biting follow-up to The Assistant, The Royal Hotel is a disquieting slow burn of a thriller, turning up the notch almost imperceptibly—until you realize it's somehow already at 11.
Americans Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) are best friends backpacking in Australia. After they run out of money, Liv, looking for an adventure, convinces Hanna to take a temporary live-in job behind the bar of a pub called The Royal Hotel in a remote Outback mining town. Bar owner Billy (Hugo Weaving) and a host of locals give the girls a riotous introduction to Down Under drinking culture, but soon Hanna and Liv find themselves trapped in an unnerving situation that grows rapidly out of their control. [91 min; thriller; English]
"This slip of a movie works best as a tone poem about the constant maneuvering young women do through the waters of toxic masculinity, a Superfund site that seems unlikely to ever be un-polluted." — Sara Stewart, Book & Film Globe
"It’s all so horribly familiar—even for those who have never traveled, never tended bar, and never found themselves the only female in a roomful of drunken, lonely men. The central terror of Green’s ferociously tense, intelligent movie is the terror of recognition." — Jessica Kiang, Los Angeles Times
"Green continues to establish herself as an insightful chronicler of the minor yet devastating terrors of violent masculinity that many women endure everywhere they go." — Marya E. Gates
Any film screened at IU Cinema may contain content that viewers find sensitive or upsetting. Visit our Audience Advisories page to learn more.
