The Royal Hotel

Directed by Kitty Green, The Royal Hotel follows backpacking Canadians Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) as they take on jobs at a rough-and-tumble working-class bar in the remote Australian Outback. Filmmaker Green, working from her and Oscar Redding’s screenplay, kicks The Royal Hotel off with a freewheeling and lighthearted feel that’s hardly indicative of what’s to come, with the movie’s instantly-agreeable atmosphere heightened by the charming, personable efforts of both Garner and Henwick. It’s only as the action shifts to that aforementioned bar that The Royal Hotel begins to adopt a much darker feel, surprisingly so, as Green delivers a midsection and second half rife with tense, uncomfortable sequences and interludes – with this particularly true of everything involving a volatile local named Dolly (Daniel Henshall). And although the lackadaisical narrative admittedly does feature a few lulls, despite the lived-in atmosphere and compelling periphery performances (eg Hugo Weaving’s memorable turn as the bar’s troubled owner), The Royal Hotel builds towards a virtually electrifying climax that ensures it ends on a seriously positive note.

*** out of ****