*Content warnings: Extreme violence, guns, drugs, death, racial slur, references to sex*

Title, Date: Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)

Director: Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods)

Star rating: 5*

SYNOPSIS 

2018’s Bad Times at The El Royale takes place in 1969, when four disparate strangers find themselves staying at the same hotel on the border between Nevada and California. There, their lives intersect in unexpected ways as the hotel - and its residents - turn out to be more than first meets the eye. 

A STRONG CAST 

The ensemble cast for this thriller is a strong one, comprising Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Cailee Spaeny, Lewis Pullman, and Chris Hemsworth - who all shine in their individual roles for different reasons. 

Jeff Bridges is unsurprisingly brilliant as the wise but complicated priest, and Lewis Pullman as the sweat-coated, nervous hotel clerk really comes into his own throughout the course of the film. 

DRAWING INFLUENCES

In collaboration with Joss Whedon, director Drew Goddard also directed and co-wrote 2011’s Cabin in the Woods, a film whose plot mirrors that of Bad Times at the El Royale, in that it’s about a group of people coming together in a strange place with its own hidden secrets. 

Like so many films, influences of Wes Anderson also shine through in the form of long, sustained shots and symmetrical bird’s eye views of carefully arranged objects. Title cards break up the plot and root the film in space and time.

Goddard has been compared to Tarantino for the film’s length (2h 20m) and excessive violence (although fans of Tarantino’s ‘water fountain of blood’ style should be warned it never gets quite as cartoonish as that). 

Another comparison can be drawn from the film’s non-linear structure, which slowly reveals the story to us through the mechanism of leading us through each individual resident’s room. 

AN ENGAGING NARRATIVE

While on a micro-level we learn each character’s back story, the film gradually zooms out to show us the overall story on a macro-level, using the hotel as the thread that weaves the character’s lives together.

This adds to the overall slow pace of the film, but the narrative never lags, making sure to keep you constantly engaged throughout. As the audience, we are continuously being pulled into the individual stories of the characters, revealing what brought them there and making us wonder how their past relates to the present-day story. 

While we’re drawing comparisons to Tarantino, we may as well throw in some Coen Brothers, as spurts of surreal dialogue call to mind the distinctive style of Joel and Ethan’s films. 

Case in point: Laramie Seymour Sullivan (Jon Hamm) is introduced as the Southern vacuum salesman by coming out from behind the bar with a cup of coffee and saying of his belongings:

“Those are my accoutrements, over there by the front desk … and I would ask you folk to please respect my claim when it comes time to divvyin’ up the rooms. But when that’ll be is anybody’s guess. Been ringin’ that dang bell so much my hand is tired, my ears are sore, and my constitution needs coffee.”

Between this clipped, formal dialogue and the introductory spiel given by the hotel clerk (“The El Royale is a bi-state establishment. You have the option to stay in either the great state of California, or the great state of Nevada: Warmth and sunshine to the west, or hope and opportunity to the east”) you can be fooled into thinking this unrealistic tone will permeate the whole film. 

However, we’ll later witness a conversation between soul singer Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo) and Father Daniel Flynn (Jeff Bridges) which takes a much more naturalistic approach, reassuring us that each character has their own distinct voice. 

GREAT COSTUMES AND SETS 

A film set in 1969 is going to have some pretty fruitful opportunities for great costumes and sets, and Bad Times at the El Royale is no exception. 

The majority of the story takes place between states, on the California/Nevada border where the hotel is located. This feeling of an undefined no man’s land gives the film a lawless feel, which has been seamlessly integrated into its aesthetics and visual themes.

The hotel is half-Nevada, half-California-themed, and only has a license to sell alcohol on the California side. Its interiors have the look of unkempt glitz, with Hamm’s character filling in the blanks for us by explaining that celebrities used to stay there, back when the hotel was ‘“swingin’” and before it lost its gambling license. 

Each room has a different theme, their gaudy, run-down designs having the look of something which was once opulent and glamorous. 

The costume choices root the film in its distinctive time-period on the cusp of the ’70s. Soul singer Darlene represents the slick, buttoned-down fashion of the 1960s with shiny, styled hair and a pencil skirt, while the mysterious Emily Summerspring (Dakota Johnson) sports long, messy hair and a fringe jacket much more in line with the silhouettes and styles of the 1970s. 

AN ENTERTAINING WAY TO SPEND A COUPLE OF HOURS

The film doesn’t just rely on aesthetics to keep us interested, as the unpredictable plot keeps us guessing what new surprise the mysterious El Royale hotel will spring on us. 

If you’re looking for an entertaining way to spend a couple of hours, you could do a lot worse than Bad Times at the El Royale. 

To find a sneaky way to watch it for free, download a free 7-day trial of Now TV and stream it there (just remember to cancel!). Otherwise, it’s definitely worth the £8 to rent via Amazon Prime. 

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Written by Alex Scarlett

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