THE ROYAL HOTEL (A-minus) - Here is a litmus test to see whether you can be jangled for 90 minutes and come out satisfied or disappointed. Writer-director Kitty Green takes two young women on backpack holiday and tosses them behind the bar at a rough-and-tumble tavern way out in the Australian outback, for a few weeks to make a few bucks, to see if they'll be devoured by the drunken miners who haunt the joint.
It is to Green's credit that you care so much about these two women -- and believe in them as authentic characters -- to the point where there is no moment to relax throughout this winking pseudo-horror psych-out. And she is blessed with two devoted stars -- Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick -- who genuinely feel like BFFs on a youthful suicide gambit.
Garner (who starred in Green's disappointing debut, "The Assistant") is fair-skinned but mentally tough Hanna, who looks like a dandelion, with her peroxide curls. Henwick has a stoner's smile and an aching soul as Liv, the one most susceptible to falling victim to the debauched lifestyle into which the local lushes lure the rotating casts of women who pass through as bartenders.
Things start out ominously when the gruff owner, Billy (a perfectly beat-up Hugo Weaving) greets them with a sharp epithet, shows them their rundown quarters upstairs, rations the water, and tosses Hanna and Liv into the deep end -- a wild night bidding farewell to their two predecessors, who entertain the regulars with blind-drunk antics, dancing on the bar and flashing their tits. Will the same fate eventually befall Hanna and Liv by the end of their tenure?
Green, who wrote the script with Oscar Redding, has a great idea (inspired by the true story of two Finnish women) and carefully constructs an air-tight narrative that gradually ratchets the tension. The mystery throughout is this: Are these local misogynists a bunch of menacing monsters or are they a pack of pathetic losers who are over-served and over-indulged by Billy, himself a sloppy drunk. The men are subtly drawn, broken souls with distinct personalities instead of being presented a faceless mob of brutes.
The only protection the young women have comes from Carol (Ursula Yovich), the level-headed mother hen at this insane asylum. Yovich helps ground the film. When she gets called away, the rats will play.
Hanna and Liv are not a couple of debutantes enjoying slum tourism on a world tour; there are hints of trauma in their past, and they are escaping as much as continent-hopping in search of the perfect beach. The men hit on them before they finish pouring their first drink, and the come-ons are unrelenting. Their defenses kick in immediately. Some of the guys are actually appealing, while others (one in particular) are just creepy and persistent.
This could have been a cheap women-in-peril toss-off, but Green imbues every scene with a level of consequences that build toward an inevitable physical climax. How these young women navigate the danger out in the middle of nowhere -- they and the others basically fuck around and find out -- is gripping from start to finish.
BONUS TRACKS
The credits provide a final howl of exhaustion, courtesy of Party Dozen with "Worker," which kicks off this four-song live set:
Meantime, the soundtrack is full of classic pop, with a budget splurge on Kylie Minogue, who offers an ironic use of "Tears on My Pillow" (from Minogue's film "The Delinquents") near the climax:
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