"Fresh meat": The female experience in The Royal Hotel

Last summer I went to see The Royal Hotel (2023) in cinema with a friend. Neither of us are big fans of the horror-genre, but I chose this flick for its undertone of - say it with me - female rage. And it's not a horror film in the classical sense, with deafening violin scores and suspenseful jumpscares, with monsters and ties to the paranormal. In The Royal Hotel, the threat is one all too human. Perhaps that makes it worse. Throughout the screening, my friend and I shared frequent terrified looks, knowing exactly how the women on screen must feel. Director Kitty Green describes it as a narrative of crippling discomfort. You can see the protagonists thinking: "I don’t feel safe in this environment, but I’m not entirely sure if that’s an overreaction or if this person’s a real threat". In short, a tale of icy psychological suspense. Let's walk through the plot, themes, and real-life comparisons.

The plot

Two American friends, Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick), are backpacking through Australia. Their story begins when they are partying the nights away in Sydney and realize that they will be out of money very soon. Time to get a job. Something temporary that pays big bucks. They head to an employment agency where they are told there is one job available: bartending at The Royal Hotel for three weeks. There's a catch though. It's deep in the Outback and therefore very remote. Nothing like the glitz and glamour of the Sydney harbor. Oh, and it's in a tiny mining town, so you'll have to be able to handle some "male attention". Hanna is hesitant, but Liv accepts the offer on behalf of the both of them before they have a chance to discuss.

When they arrive at The Royal Hotel, they are greeted with a desert-like landscape. They get out of the car and they realize just how isolated this place is. There is a sense of entrapment. No turning back now. A woman comes to greet them and to show them to their room. It's occupied still; the previous bartenders, two young women from England, are passed out on the couch, either severely hungover or still drunk from the night before. Hanna and Liv are shown the ropes by Billy, the owner of the bar. He is an alcoholic who is no stranger to making bad decisions, but he knows what the men on the barstools want. The first night is immediately chaotic and sets the tone for the women's experiences throughout their stay. From lewd "jokes" to sexually tinted comments, to entitled behavior from the guests, Liv and Hanna's limits are challenged from the get-go. And the two English women stop by to say goodbye to the regulars before they set off on another adventure. They do so by climbing on top of the bar, flashing the men in front of them, and getting incredibly wasted. "That'll be us in a couple of weeks", Liv says to her companion as Hanna looks on in shock.

At the end of the night they make their way outside to discover, I guess you could call it a mural, of the silhouette of a woman's ass accompanied by the text: "Fresh meat". Hanna is disgusted and pleas with Liv to leave as quickly as possible, but Liv encourages her to stick it out a little longer. The pay is pretty good, so let's make some dough and then we'll see how we feel. What follows is a gradual build-up of psychological and physical tension, as the women navigate who they can trust and who poses a danger to them, as well as what they are able to tolerate and where they draw the line when it comes to the male behavior they are experiencing daily. Mild spoiler alert: The end of their stay will be very different to their English predecessors, but you'll have to watch the movie to discover exactly how.

Hotel Coolgardie

It wasn't until after seeing the film that I found out it is based on an actual place, and two actual women who were in a eerily similar predicament to Hanna and Liv. Peter Gleeson made a documentary on the bar, following two Finnish backpackers as they recount their experiences at Hotel Coolgardie. The documentary, which premiered in 2016, was supposed to be a commentary on how foreigners find their way in Australian culture, but, as Gleeson explains: "these Finns arrived and they appeared not to be trying to fit in as much as the patrons would have liked them to. By not really wanting to play the game, or interact the way they were expected, they kind of became this blank canvas for people to project their own simmering inner conflicts on to. The film took a whole different turn after that".

The 'not all men' narrative

The entire plot of The Royal Hotel reminded me of something that is often said when women express their fear of men: that not all men are bad. And that this innate anxiety of them is an unfair characterization of the good ones. It's almost framed as if expressing unease towards men is an individual, personal attack. I hope to show here that that is not the case. The Royal Hotel highlights the paradoxical position of women really well. We want to be trusting and assume the best in people, but when that trust has historically led to breaches of our collective or personal safety, that becomes much more difficult.

This is all to say that, women are well aware that not all men will take advantage of us. But until we truly get to know the man in question, it's a Schrödinger's cat situation. Not yet knowing his intentions or capabilities, it could go either way, and in such an uncertain situation we've learned to err on the side of caution. It's why, when a 50 year old man in a bar in Oklahoma City tells me that I can spend time with him the next day because he'll be "free all day sweetheart", I politely smile and tell him I already have plans. Or when a Vancouver native, again around the age of 50, looking eerily similar to Joaquin Phoenix's character in Joker (2019), stops me on the street to ask if I'm a photographer, I reluctantly listen to his documentary pitch on the similarities between Rock & Roll and garbage dumps, before backing away slowly and walking a lap around the block to prevent him from following me. Or when a highly intoxicated Dutch frat boy follows me to the exit of a train when we're approaching my stop around midnight, badgering me for the bottle of alcohol he's convinced himself I have stashed in my backpack, asking me where I'm going, I don't tell him off. I tell him I'm going home and I position myself as far away from him as possible while he continues to slur and ramble.

...I could go on.

What I find so striking in The Royal Hotel is that there is a very gradual build-up to the explosive finale. The men at the bar are testing Hanna and Liv to see how far they can push their demeaning, intimidating behavior. And the women in return are constantly calculating to what extent they can let these comments slide, in the spirit of the service industry, and when it crosses a line. And even when that happens, they have to respond in a strategic manner. A wrong move could worsen the situation, as it sometimes does. The men who test the bartenders are well aware of their position of power, both as it relates to their gender, as well as their status as a paying customer, and they think themselves invincible to consequences because of it.

It leads to two types of behavior. Either plain rudeness accompanied by demeaning comments and intimidation. Well, rather: a projection of male insecurities and an almost compulsive need to assert dominance. Or words and actions that could be considered just innocent flirting or teasing, only for its true character to be revealed once the women show resistance. I think a good way to sum up the tone of the film is through something Green describes in this interview. You will notice that most of the harassment the women experience in The Royal Hotel is non-physical. This was intentional. When Green was asked about her focus on the psychological rather than the corporal, she answers with this quote I would like to end on, to provide some grounds for introspection.

As soon as you show the violence, everyone watching it can go: “I'm not like him because I don't do that.” Whereas if you never show the violence, everyone's forced to look at their own behaviour and go: “Maybe when I made that joke, it wasn’t appropriate.” It forces people to examine their own behaviour a little more.