In Kitty Green’s brilliant narrative feature debut “The Assistant,” it would have been appropriate for the film’s mostly silent and tormented junior associate (Julia Garner) to pick up an axe or burn down the whole damn place in response to the emotional torture she’d been subjected to in an unglamorous yet high-profile film production office.
Structured with metronomic perfection, “The Assistant” wasn’t that thriller, however—instead, it was a quietly harrowing one that kept you screaming on the inside. “The Royal Hotel,” on the other hand, is that thriller where Green flexes her genre muscles impeccably.
Also starring a flawless Julia Garner—this time, alongside an equally terrific Jessica Henwick—Green’s sophomore narrative is once again focused on the distresses and perils of being a young woman in the world, polluted by the dangerous gaze and entitlement of men.