Film history is full of troublesome hotels, isn’t it? A few of them we've even covered on this very show, from the haunted Overlook in The Shining to the labyrinthine, unsettling Airbnb in Barbarian – the kinds of places that make you vow to never complain about a Premier Inn again. This week, revered writer-director Kitty Green releases a thriller that adds to that long list with the sublime The Royal Hotel – an at times unbearably tense exploration of gender and toxic masculinity, set in rural Australian. On today’s episode of Script Apart, Kitty stops by for a spoiler breakdown of the movie, in which two young women in need of money check into a dilapidated pub in a remote mining town. What happens next, as the line is blurred between drunken boys-will-be-boys and truly dangerous behaviour, is impossible to tear your eyes away from, beautifully written and impeccably directed.

In the conversation you’re about to hear, Kitty tells us about her own family connections to the mining town pub culture depicted in the film, which was co-written with Oscar Redding. We unpack what’s going on in the heads of the film’s two leads, Hannah and Liv, as they encounter some of the community’s many microaggressions towards them. She also breaks down the film’s connections to her last movie, The Assistant, and what the two dramas combined express about the epidemic of male violence towards women. 

Please be sure to check out the film before listening as this episode has more spoilers than you can shake a taxidermied snake at.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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