Richard Crouse

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.