In 2019, Kitty Green’s narrative feature debut, THE ASSISTANT, premiered at Sundance to critical acclaim. The film, which featured Julia Garner as a meek assistant struggling to find the courage to whistleblow against a predatory Hollywood producer (the film taking creative liberties not to mention them as a Harvey Weinstein stand-in), was a more subdued take-down of the patriarchy, framed as that of Hollywood’s powerful exacting their control over the powerless. The gut-wrenching power of THE ASSISTANT came from its subtlety, where the brashness of the Hollywood executive’s sexism flew beneath the radar, becoming hegemonic with their underlings.
No one in Green’s narrative debut made big flamboyant gestures inside a courtroom, grandly gesticulating about #MeToo. It left audiences justifiably horrified by the producer’s actions as we experience the film in a state of repercussion-less discomfort. Green’s sophomore feature, THE ROYAL HOTEL, feels like a natural progression for her, as it takes those same misogynistic foundations portrayed in THE ASSISTANT and builds a robust pressure-cooker thriller on top, where rampant misogyny is bubbling away, barely underneath the dusty layers of Australian dirt.
This review was posted on November 3rd 2023. Full review linked below.
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