Edgy and tense, “The Royal Hotel” is a slow burn story about sexual violence and intimidation, power dynamics and revenge, wrapped up in a story about two young women on a work/travel visit to Australia.
Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick play Hanna and Liv, American backpackers, who claim to be Canadian when asked—“Everybody loves Canadians,” Hannah says.—on a work and travel program in an Australian city. The free-spirited Liv has burned through her cash, forcing the pair to apply for work at a job agency.
They are placed as bartenders in a hotel pub, but the gig comes with words of caution.
“It’s good money,” they’re told, “the only thing that makes it bothersome is the remoteness of the location. It’s a mining town, so you’ll have to get used to the male attention.”
“Will there be kangaroos?” Liv asks naively.
There are kangaroos, but they’re in the minority. The anything-but-regal Royal Hotel offers up a mostly male clientele, unused to the niceties of polite society. Add to that a drunken, gruff owner (Hugo Weaving) who is more concerned with selling booze than policing the behavior of his customers. “If I banned everyone who does bad stuff,” he says, “I’d be out of business.”
Their first night behind the bar is marked by a sign out front that reads “Fresh Meat.” Inside, the bar is filled with predatory customers who make lewd remarks and repeatedly encourage the stern Hannah to lean in while she serves them and to “smile more.”
People are strange, when you’re a stranger.
The longer they stay, and the more drinks they serve, the worse their customers behave. Hannah wants out, but, despite the menace, the adventurous Liv wants to stay. “You’re strong,” Liv says to Hannah. “No, I’m not,” Hannah says. “I’m weak and I’m scared and I want to go home!”
“The Royal Hotel” isn’t a travelogue or a “Shirley Valentine”-style journey of self-discovery. What begins as a lark, an adventure in Australia, soon turns into a cabin-in-the-woods style horror movie, where the boogeyman is toxic male behavior.
Director Kitty Green expertly ratches up the tension, allowing the sense of unease to simmer for much of the film until reaching full boil. Something is going to happen, but we’re never quite sure what, and by the time Green stages her cathartic climax, it’s a welcome release from the pent up anxiety felt by Hanna and Liv and the audience.
Garner and Henwick are both great, both steely and vulnerable, but the real star here is Green, whose examination of gender politics is provocative and unsettling.
She is the invisible woman. The assistant to a high-flying New York movie mogul, Jane (Julia Garner) floats around the office, silently collating papers, cleaning up mysterious stains from her boss’s casting couch—“Never sit on the couch,” her co-workers joke—wordlessly doing the jobs nobody else will do. An aspiring filmmaker with hopes of one day producing her own movies she sees the job, low level as it is, as a stepping stone.
When her boss flies in a young, pretty waitress (Kristine Froseth) he met at the Sundance Film Festival to work in his office Jane suspects it is a #MeToo situation in the making. Reporting her feelings to HR in hopes of protecting the new naive hire she is instead reminded of how power works. “I can see you have what it takes to produce,” says the appropriately named HR guy Wilcock (“Succession’s” Matthew Macfadyen). “Why are you trying to throw it all away?”
That harrowing scene lies at the heart of “The Assistant,” now on VOD. A timely study of the systemic mistreatment of vulnerable and defenceless women, Jane’s story is an account of the many slights and indignities suffered by subordinates to power.
“The Assistant” is a quiet movie. Much of the dialogue comes from Jane’s conversations with unseen limo drivers or her boss. We see her limited interaction with co-workers, but mostly we see the day-to-day drudgery that fills her hours. She arrives before dawn, stays well into the night and is treated like she should feel lucky to be there. Director Kitty Green keeps the focus tight, allowing the viewer to feel the soul-crushing drudgery of Jane’s job. She is invisible, a presence simply to absorb her boss’s bad temper and get lunch for the senor staffers.
Green never strays from Jane. We don’t meet the head honcho or learn about anyone’s backstory. It’s not that kind of movie. Instead it is a document of the degradations and power dynamic that are an accepted part of the job. The film’s chattiest scene, between Jane and HR’s Wilcock, is quiet but shattering in its impact. His smugness is the very attitude that enabled the very abuse that Harvey Weinstein is facing trial for today. The casual nature of Wilcock dismissiveness is chilling, punctuated by one last parting shot. On her way out of their meeting he ‘reassuringly’ adds, “You don’t have anything to worry about. You’re not his type.”
“The Assistant” is anchored by a subtle yet devastating performance from Garner. The hard-edged bluster she brings to her character on “Ozark” is missing, replaced by anxiety as she realizes the extent of the exploitation happening around her. It’s quiet, restrained and heartbreaking to watch how she is beaten down.
Based on hundreds of interviews with real-life assistants, this is more than just a movie, it is a timely document of abuse of power and complicity.
The last time Lily Tomlin had a lead role in a film was almost three decades ago. It’s been too long. “Grandma” shows her at age 75 in fine form as a cantankerous poet who goes on a journey, both physical and metaphysical, on one busy afternoon.
Tomlin plays Elle Reid, a once famous poet, now an unemployed seventy-something living alone following the death of Violet, her companion of thirty-eight years. Her quiet life is interrupted when her granddaughter Sage (Julia Garner) arrives at her door looking for $630 to have an abortion. Her high school boyfriend promised to pay but now doesn’t have the money or the interest to help out. Elle doesn’t have the cash either but hits the road with Sage in search of the cash.
“Mom says you’re a philanthropist,” says Sage. “Wait, that’s not it… misanthropic.”
“That’s an understatement,” `snorts Elle.
Over the next few hours they drop in, unannounced, on the slacker boyfriend (Nat Wolff), an old friend of Elle’s (Sam Elliott), an angry café owner (the late Elizabeth Peña), an old flame (Judy Greer) and the one person who intimidates both Elle and Sage (Marcia Gay Harden).
The premise of “Grandma” is provocative. A young woman and her grandmother trying to raise cash for an abortion is bound to raise an eyebrow or two, but the movie isn’t really about that. The abortion is the McGuffin, the reason for the journey but not the reason for the story. The abortion is treated matter-of-factly, it’s the relationships that count.
It’s a pleasure to watch Tomlin let loose as Elle. As Elle she’s an unstoppable force of nature, unrepentant and resourceful. It’s great fun to watch her bully her way through life but Tomlin adds dimension to the character, allowing her vulnerable side to peak through from time to time. She commands the screen whether she’s being argumentative, beating up a teen (yup, she does that) or crying in the shower at the remembrance of lost love. It’s the moments of openness that elevate “Grandma” from “Grumpy Old Lady” movie to interesting character study.
Good performances keep “Grandma’s” relationships dynamic and by the time all is said and done the message of life goes on, hiccups and all, is subtly but powerfully enforced.
