Bad Times at the El Royale is not Cabin in the Woods: Chapter 2.
It's worth emphasizing that right off the bat. After all, the trailers for writer/director Drew Goddard's latest seemed to lay out a few similarities to his subversive, instant cult classic of a directorial debut. When Jeff Bridges' Father Daniel Flynn asks Lewis Pullman's apprehensive bellhop who tasks him with watching guests at the hotel, the young man sheepishly replies "Management." From that little hint, it nearly seemed like Goddard and the marketing team at Fox were priming us for another spectacle of manipulation and deceit, focusing on the lives of a group of characters at the mercy of a higher power.
While the presence of a higher spiritual force runs through Goddard's sophomore feature, there is no shocking reveal in store here. The characters aren't stuck in an elaborate prison with the greatest criminals of all time or anything like that. No, Bad Times at the El Royale is less concerned with twists and more compelled by its status as a reflection on American themes through the prism of an elaborate mystery. The film has been linked to Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight numerous times over the last several weeks, and there's a very good reason for that. Something about the chamber piece thriller must inherently draw out commentary on the best and worst of this country.
The film takes place at the tail end of the 1960s, bringing together seven different characters for a night of violence and atonement. The meeting place is the El Royale Hotel, a once-glorious resort that is now a shell of its former self (hint, hint). According to slick insurance salesman Laramie Seymour Sullivan (Jon Hamm), the bi-state establishment (it's located on the border of California and Nevada) used to be the meeting spot for the ritziest and most powerful of customers, including many of the era's popular singers. Now, it's decrepit and empty, with only flustered bellhop Miles Miller to run things.
In those opening moments, we're introduced to most of the main players. There's Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo), a struggling, but immensely talented vocalist on her way to a low-paying job in Reno. We also meet Father Flynn, a generous man with an unassuming demeanor. They're immediately subject to the smooth talking and casual racism of Sullivan, who is easily the most demanding of the customers. Shortly after those three make their way to the El Royale, Emily Summerspring (Dakota Johnson) rolls up in fancy car, armed a no-nonsense attitude and zero patience for Sullivan's BS. And with that, the patrons go their separate ways for the night. Well, at least for now.
You see, not everything is as it seems at the El Royale. First, Laramie Seymour Sullivan is not the man he claims to be. He's there for a specific purpose, and he's reportedly supposed to do nothing to jeopardize that mission. But he discovers something into the hotel- every room has a two-way mirror for the staff to spy on the customers. During his trip through the labyrinth, Mr. Sullivan sees some things. Father Flynn is tearing apart the floorboards, searching for who knows what. Emily has kidnapped a young girl (Cailee Spaeny), who's currently tied to a chair in her room. Sullivan is flabbergasted. And it only gets worse from here.
What I've just described is confined to roughly the first half hour of the film, which just goes to show the density and complexity of Goddard's new project. Beyond the twists and surprises, the second half also introduces us to Billy Lee (Chris Hemsworth), a charismatic cult leader who wreaks all manner of havoc on the hotel. It makes for a long (140 minutes) and somewhat unruly experience, but these dramatic pieces coalesce nicely.
As a thriller, Bad Times at the El Royale is often nail-biting in its atmosphere of uncertainty, though I can see why many have found fault with Goddard's touch. After Cabin in the Woods proved to be both a novel twist on a popular set of tropes and a hilarious genre-bender in its own right (though some credit must go to screenwriter Joss Whedon), there's the faintest air of "That's it?" when this film comes to an end. I don't have the same problems with the finale that many others seem to have, but after such a sprawling and positively Tarantino-esque setup (some of it veering into tedium in the first hour), the dearth of a show-stopping payoff could be seen as underwhelming.
But what Goddard lacks in big picture twists, he makes up for with the kind of moment-to-moment intensity we only see in the best of thrillers. Violence happens suddenly at the El Royale, even flat-out removing characters from the story with only the briefest of warnings. Goddard plays with point-of-view in several sequences, showing crucial events from different vantage points in order to connect these initially separate characters (the film features a chapter structure organized by the rooms of the hotel, similar to many of Tarantino's films). Remarkably, even when we've already been shown a shocking event, the film still manages to squeeze so much tension out of this change in perspective. That takes skill, and Goddard pulls it off multiple times with a special sort of finesse.
The director's command of his story is impressive, mastering a steady drip of information that sustains our attention until the simmering dread boils over into madness. If you've seen the trailers, I unfortunately must report that many of the small twists have been inadvertently spoiled for you in one way or another. And with no big shock to keep hidden, I wish the marketing team had kept some of these small surprises under wraps. Still, there's a spirit of unpredictability in play throughout the entire film; it feels like Goddard is throwing us for a loop whenever he can, shifting the startling violence forward just moments before we expect it.
The result is a strong and engaging crime thriller, equipped with a terrific soundtrack of bubbly 1950s/60s pop hits and a playful noir aesthetic from DP Seamus McGarvey. But amid the mayhem and crime movie trappings, something sneakily profound elevates Bad Times from being "just" a solid potboiler to a film that's arguably more fascinating than whatever's happening on the surface. Like many of its own characters, this movie is not what it's pretending to be. It's difficult to narrow down exactly what Goddard is after based on just a single viewing, but there's a sad, painful story lodged in the very heart of the El Royale, which ultimately serves to expand the film's scope tenfold.
Broadly speaking, if I wanted to narrow down Goddard's thematic preoccupations to a single topic or two, I would say this is a movie about American absolution, or more specifically, the country's need to come to terms with its own sins. It's both precisely about 1969 (after Tarantino's own Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, we could make a fun little trilogy with this and PTA's Inherent Vice) and attuned to our own modern state, presenting a spectacular swirl of characters, all of whom have suffered and sinned in one way or another. It's a movie about coming to terms with a decade of transgressions, made at a time when so many of those transgressions seem more relevant than ever.
A young soldier is haunted by memories of Vietnam, possessed by the hundreds of lives he took in the quest for some dated notion of American glory. An everyman hunts for a sordid tape of a famous politician, hoping to maintain the image of a history that could be re-written overnight. One woman seeks forgiveness for letting her sister go so far astray that she fell into the arms of a charming cult leader. Here they all are, stuck in a hotel that seems permanently lodged in another era, at the mercy of nobody but themselves. Even the religious presence in the room turns out to be a fraud- we're in the land of the godless now.
It all culminates with a mesmerizing monologue from Darlene, who takes Billy Lee to task for his pretensions and facade of great power. Men like you, with your lies and false promises and fragile egos, have run this country for too long, she tells him. Politicians, cult leaders, record producers- it's all an effect of the same condition. In this moment, Bad Times at the El Royale confirms that whatever you thought it might implicitly be doing is actually a part of its active narrative. This is a movie about a country's unified search for reason and meaning, based entirely on a personal and national yearning for forgiveness. Put it all together, and you have a weight that's too much for anyone to bear. It must be lifted.
But maybe there's nobody capable of forgiving all that has transpired here. Maybe our only option is to forgive ourselves and burn it all down in the process, until we can start fresh on another spiral towards a new type of chaos. That may be the only way to come to terms with it all.
Future viewings will clarify exactly what Goddard is trying to say. Again, this thing is overstuffed, even with such a monumental runtime. But if I went in expecting just a deliciously stylish crime epic, I walked out having seen something much more relevant, reflective, and psychologically piercing than I could have ever hoped for. To me, that's always a victory worth celebrating.
THE FINAL GRADE: B+ (7.9/10)
Images courtesy of 20th Century Fox
It's worth emphasizing that right off the bat. After all, the trailers for writer/director Drew Goddard's latest seemed to lay out a few similarities to his subversive, instant cult classic of a directorial debut. When Jeff Bridges' Father Daniel Flynn asks Lewis Pullman's apprehensive bellhop who tasks him with watching guests at the hotel, the young man sheepishly replies "Management." From that little hint, it nearly seemed like Goddard and the marketing team at Fox were priming us for another spectacle of manipulation and deceit, focusing on the lives of a group of characters at the mercy of a higher power.
While the presence of a higher spiritual force runs through Goddard's sophomore feature, there is no shocking reveal in store here. The characters aren't stuck in an elaborate prison with the greatest criminals of all time or anything like that. No, Bad Times at the El Royale is less concerned with twists and more compelled by its status as a reflection on American themes through the prism of an elaborate mystery. The film has been linked to Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight numerous times over the last several weeks, and there's a very good reason for that. Something about the chamber piece thriller must inherently draw out commentary on the best and worst of this country.
The film takes place at the tail end of the 1960s, bringing together seven different characters for a night of violence and atonement. The meeting place is the El Royale Hotel, a once-glorious resort that is now a shell of its former self (hint, hint). According to slick insurance salesman Laramie Seymour Sullivan (Jon Hamm), the bi-state establishment (it's located on the border of California and Nevada) used to be the meeting spot for the ritziest and most powerful of customers, including many of the era's popular singers. Now, it's decrepit and empty, with only flustered bellhop Miles Miller to run things.
In those opening moments, we're introduced to most of the main players. There's Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo), a struggling, but immensely talented vocalist on her way to a low-paying job in Reno. We also meet Father Flynn, a generous man with an unassuming demeanor. They're immediately subject to the smooth talking and casual racism of Sullivan, who is easily the most demanding of the customers. Shortly after those three make their way to the El Royale, Emily Summerspring (Dakota Johnson) rolls up in fancy car, armed a no-nonsense attitude and zero patience for Sullivan's BS. And with that, the patrons go their separate ways for the night. Well, at least for now.
You see, not everything is as it seems at the El Royale. First, Laramie Seymour Sullivan is not the man he claims to be. He's there for a specific purpose, and he's reportedly supposed to do nothing to jeopardize that mission. But he discovers something into the hotel- every room has a two-way mirror for the staff to spy on the customers. During his trip through the labyrinth, Mr. Sullivan sees some things. Father Flynn is tearing apart the floorboards, searching for who knows what. Emily has kidnapped a young girl (Cailee Spaeny), who's currently tied to a chair in her room. Sullivan is flabbergasted. And it only gets worse from here.
What I've just described is confined to roughly the first half hour of the film, which just goes to show the density and complexity of Goddard's new project. Beyond the twists and surprises, the second half also introduces us to Billy Lee (Chris Hemsworth), a charismatic cult leader who wreaks all manner of havoc on the hotel. It makes for a long (140 minutes) and somewhat unruly experience, but these dramatic pieces coalesce nicely.
As a thriller, Bad Times at the El Royale is often nail-biting in its atmosphere of uncertainty, though I can see why many have found fault with Goddard's touch. After Cabin in the Woods proved to be both a novel twist on a popular set of tropes and a hilarious genre-bender in its own right (though some credit must go to screenwriter Joss Whedon), there's the faintest air of "That's it?" when this film comes to an end. I don't have the same problems with the finale that many others seem to have, but after such a sprawling and positively Tarantino-esque setup (some of it veering into tedium in the first hour), the dearth of a show-stopping payoff could be seen as underwhelming.
But what Goddard lacks in big picture twists, he makes up for with the kind of moment-to-moment intensity we only see in the best of thrillers. Violence happens suddenly at the El Royale, even flat-out removing characters from the story with only the briefest of warnings. Goddard plays with point-of-view in several sequences, showing crucial events from different vantage points in order to connect these initially separate characters (the film features a chapter structure organized by the rooms of the hotel, similar to many of Tarantino's films). Remarkably, even when we've already been shown a shocking event, the film still manages to squeeze so much tension out of this change in perspective. That takes skill, and Goddard pulls it off multiple times with a special sort of finesse.
The director's command of his story is impressive, mastering a steady drip of information that sustains our attention until the simmering dread boils over into madness. If you've seen the trailers, I unfortunately must report that many of the small twists have been inadvertently spoiled for you in one way or another. And with no big shock to keep hidden, I wish the marketing team had kept some of these small surprises under wraps. Still, there's a spirit of unpredictability in play throughout the entire film; it feels like Goddard is throwing us for a loop whenever he can, shifting the startling violence forward just moments before we expect it.
The result is a strong and engaging crime thriller, equipped with a terrific soundtrack of bubbly 1950s/60s pop hits and a playful noir aesthetic from DP Seamus McGarvey. But amid the mayhem and crime movie trappings, something sneakily profound elevates Bad Times from being "just" a solid potboiler to a film that's arguably more fascinating than whatever's happening on the surface. Like many of its own characters, this movie is not what it's pretending to be. It's difficult to narrow down exactly what Goddard is after based on just a single viewing, but there's a sad, painful story lodged in the very heart of the El Royale, which ultimately serves to expand the film's scope tenfold.
Broadly speaking, if I wanted to narrow down Goddard's thematic preoccupations to a single topic or two, I would say this is a movie about American absolution, or more specifically, the country's need to come to terms with its own sins. It's both precisely about 1969 (after Tarantino's own Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, we could make a fun little trilogy with this and PTA's Inherent Vice) and attuned to our own modern state, presenting a spectacular swirl of characters, all of whom have suffered and sinned in one way or another. It's a movie about coming to terms with a decade of transgressions, made at a time when so many of those transgressions seem more relevant than ever.
A young soldier is haunted by memories of Vietnam, possessed by the hundreds of lives he took in the quest for some dated notion of American glory. An everyman hunts for a sordid tape of a famous politician, hoping to maintain the image of a history that could be re-written overnight. One woman seeks forgiveness for letting her sister go so far astray that she fell into the arms of a charming cult leader. Here they all are, stuck in a hotel that seems permanently lodged in another era, at the mercy of nobody but themselves. Even the religious presence in the room turns out to be a fraud- we're in the land of the godless now.
It all culminates with a mesmerizing monologue from Darlene, who takes Billy Lee to task for his pretensions and facade of great power. Men like you, with your lies and false promises and fragile egos, have run this country for too long, she tells him. Politicians, cult leaders, record producers- it's all an effect of the same condition. In this moment, Bad Times at the El Royale confirms that whatever you thought it might implicitly be doing is actually a part of its active narrative. This is a movie about a country's unified search for reason and meaning, based entirely on a personal and national yearning for forgiveness. Put it all together, and you have a weight that's too much for anyone to bear. It must be lifted.
But maybe there's nobody capable of forgiving all that has transpired here. Maybe our only option is to forgive ourselves and burn it all down in the process, until we can start fresh on another spiral towards a new type of chaos. That may be the only way to come to terms with it all.
Future viewings will clarify exactly what Goddard is trying to say. Again, this thing is overstuffed, even with such a monumental runtime. But if I went in expecting just a deliciously stylish crime epic, I walked out having seen something much more relevant, reflective, and psychologically piercing than I could have ever hoped for. To me, that's always a victory worth celebrating.
THE FINAL GRADE: B+ (7.9/10)
Images courtesy of 20th Century Fox
Comments
Post a Comment