Emily
From the moment we enter Drew Goddard’s “El Royale”, we are introduced to a hotel filled with mystery and intrigue. The film opens on a sparsely decorated guest room. A man and a bag are the space’s only inhabitants. After a moment of silence, the man gets to work moving furniture around and eventually opens a hole in the floor large enough to hide the bag. With his mission complete, the still unidentified man is ready to leave the hotel, but is instead shot dead before he gets the chance. What follows next is a Clue-like game where mysterious guests discover the hidden secrets buried inside the hotel and inside themselves.
Unfortunately, the most contrived moment in the film occurs immediately following this opening sequence when we meet the first four of the hotel’s customers. Even the magnificent performances can do little to hide the fact that it seems unlikely that these guests should all decide to show up at the hotel on the same night, when the location had previously been deserted, except for a lone Norman Bates-esque hotel clerk (Lewis Pullman). Regardless, the cast is flawless and consists of a vacuum salesman (Jon Hamm), a singer (Cynthia Ervio), a priest (Jeff Bridges) and a hippie (Dakota Johnson). The characters perfectly compliment the quirkiness of the hotel, half sunshiny goodness (California) and the other half dark and sinful (Nevada). While every actor is fantastic, the real standout in the cast is Cynthia Ervio. Every word and note of her’s seems to radiate off the screen. She is the true star of this film in every sense.
There has been a lot of talk portraying this film as another Quentin Tarantino knockoff with it’s heavily stylized, 60’s music infused scenes, but this overlooks the obvious Hitchcockian influences as well. The film is not so much cliché as it is reliant on plant and pay off. Every scene in the film has a purpose and even if the runtime does feel a little long, you’d be hard pressed to find a single scene that the filmmakers could’ve removed. The script is stacked like a house of cards, balancing every character’s needs and wants so preciously that if you were to remove a single frame the whole thing would come tumbling down.
“Bad Times at the El Royale” is a Hollywood movie in every sense of the phrase, with its sharp style and star studded cast, but the intricate design of the storytelling shouldn’t be overlooked. Even though many may be quick to judge this film against others who have come before, one should remember that the filmmakers being referenced in comparison are all true masters of the craft and so it’s delightful to see a newer filmmaker stepping into the game with such innovative and thought provoking movies. I, for one, can’t wait to see what Goddard comes up with next. So, while the long runtime may keep many viewers from wanting a second look at the film, enjoying the ride at least once is absolutely worth it.
