For the first minute of The Royal Hotel trailer everything seems fine. But then the tone suddenly shifts, and everything about the environment Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick’s characters find themselves in turns menacing.
Julia Garner (Ozark) stars as Hanna, Jessica Henwick (Glass Onion) is Liv, Toby Wallace (The Society) plays Matty, and Hugo Weaving (the Lord of the Rings films) is Billy. The cast also includes Ursula Yovich as Carol, Daniel Henshall as Dolly, James Frecheville as Teeth, and Herbert Nordrum as Torsten.
The Royal Hotel writer/director Kitty Green made her feature film directorial debut with 2019’s critically acclaimed The Assistant, which also starred Julia Garner. Oscar Redding co-wrote the screenplay, Michael Latham is the director of photography, Leah Popple is the production designer, Mariot Kerr is the costume designer, and Kasra Rassoulzadegan is the editor.
Neon offered this description of the thriller:
“Americans Hanna and Liv 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 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.”
Discussing her sophomore feature film which is inspired by director Pete Gleeson’s documentary Hotel Coolgardie, writer/director Kitty Green explained she was taken in by the documentary’s examination of two Scandinavian women trapped in an Australian mining town. Green latched on to the idea of telling a story set in a remote Aussie pub through a female lens.
“There’s a part of me that understands that pub world and a part of me that is terrified by it,” stated Green whose grandfather owned a pub in regional Australia. “I feel that my background allowed me to be able to see both points of view. I’ve always wanted to make an Australian film. I had not made one in Australia since film school – I left Australia and started making films in Ukraine and in North America. I’d see Australians at film festivals, and people from Screen Australia and elsewhere would say ‘come and make a movie back home.’ But I didn’t ever have the opportunity until The Royal Hotel.”
Neon’s The Royal Hotel will screen at the Toronto International Film Festival and will open in theaters on October 6, 2023.
