<em>The Royal Hotel </em>Taps Into Every Female Traveler’s Fears
Kitty Green’s new movie follows two backpackers who do everything they can to avoid male aggression—and find it anyway.
In The Royal Hotel, a new film by the writer-director Kitty Green, two women run out of money while backpacking through Australia. As a last resort, they begin bartending at a remote, male-dominated mining town in the outback. To prepare for the job and the attention they’re warned they’ll receive, they draw on every lesson they’ve learned about how to stay safe, and maybe even sane, as women. They dress appropriately for the job. They don’t go anywhere without each other. They lock their doors at night. They laugh at bad jokes, smile at unruly patrons, kick out the overly inebriated. They even hide their American identity by claiming to be Canadian.
And yet, for all their efforts, they can’t
