Royal Hotel * * *

Many of us will remember Julia Garner from her outstanding performance in the TV Series Ozark. In that series she plays a girl not be messed with.  Smart and tough.  Really tough!  So when she occasionally flexes authority in this film you believe her. 

Conversely there is a memorable scene where she is talking to her friend and saying "I'm scared, I'm really scared and I want to get out of here".   And I'm thinking, well, that's just about the most unconvincing piece of acting I've seen in a long time. Was it? Have I stereotyped her?  Don't know.  But I couldn't help but notice it.  Otherwise, her excellence shines as Hanna and so does her co-star, Jessica Henwick as Liv. And quite a few other players perform frighteningly (literally) well in this drama.

But never mind the actors let's look at the characters they are playing.

You better run, you better take cover.

Hanna and Liv are a couple of Canadian girls who are having a working holiday in Australia.  So as to make it clear to overseas audiences it all starts off on Sydney Harbour with the two girls on a day cruise featuring the opera house and the bridge. We quickly learn two things about the girls. They are party animals, one more than the other, and they are out of money. 

They are offered a job as barmaids in an outback pub (The Royal Hotel).  They're warned the only clients are likely to be men who work in the mining industry.  Very ocker, very tough and many of them suffering from outback craziness -  their isolation having disassociated them from the real world.

I have to say they are all superbly played. Hugo Weaving as Billy the alcoholic owner of the pub, Carol the aboriginal cook, and the drinkers, of which on the first night there are plenty.  The previous barmaids - a couple of English backpackers - are leaving and they were very popular. It might have something to do with the way they would drink heavily themselves and flash their tits etc.  Hanna and Liv do not intend to do the same. Especially Hanna who is soon branded "Sour Cunt".

At some time in our life we have found ourselves in a place or situation where we are surrounded by these type of men.  Much hilarity, crudeness, immaturity with an invitation to participate and also a sense of threat.  Good blokes, bad blokes. But even the good blokes say of the bad blokes "Nah, he's alright", when it's perfectly obvious he isn't!

There is not much of a plot in Royal Hotel so much as an invitation to watch the two girls trying to survive in an ever increasing atmosphere of menace and insecurity.  Especially with a bloke called  Dolly with his crazy eyes and his "Just joking" reassurance in regard to his ever increasing ugly behaviour.  

Heros turn out to be weak and dubious or no less crazy than the nasty bastards. And then the girls friendship itself comes under threat as Liv begins to succumb to the alcohol fuelled craziness of outback living. 

I'd like to say it culminates but unfortunately it doesn't.  It changes gear - almost changes genre - and spoils itself more effectively than any criticism I could dish up. 

Director Kitty Green has done two other films highly critical of men and their behaviour. I guess this is another one.