Bad Times at the El Royale

Writer/director Drew Goddard’s follow up to his inventive debut Cabin in the Woods once again plays with audience expectations, but this time within the neo-noir genre.  A fantastic cast, including a star turn from up-and-coming actress Cynthia Erivo, bring the eclectic characters to life in this twisty, stylish and beautifully shot thriller.

Premise: A priest (Jeff Bridges), a struggling singer (Cynthia Erivo), a vacuum cleaner salesman (Jon Hamm) and a hippy (Dakota Johnson) check into the El Royale motel on the California/Nevada border in 1969. The El Royale has seen better days, and now seems to be staffed by a lone clerk (Lewis Pullman). But nothing and no one are quite what they seem…

Review:

This is a perfect example of a film that is better the less you know about it going in.  Like Drew Goddard’s first film, the excellent (and criminally underrated) Cabin in the Woods, this film is both a homage to classic genre films, and a bold reimagining of those tropes.  At several points in Bad Times at the El Royale, Goddard leads the audience into expecting one thing, only for the rug to be pulled out from under them at the last moment.

With this in mind, it’s a shame that the trailers already gave so much away (although I won’t repeat what’s in the trailers, in case you haven’t seen them yet), but even so, there are still plenty of twists and unexpected developments that should come as a surprise.  But this isn’t a film that throws in plot twists for the sake of it, as everything in this film is fundamentally character driven.

“…the film works so well because of the strength of the cast…”

As great as Drew Goddard’s screenplay is (and it is good), the film works so well because of the strength of the cast, which is made up entirely of veteran and up-and-coming character actors.  Jeff Bridges just seems to get better with age, and his role as Father Daniel Flynn in this film reminds me a little of his Oscar nominated performance in Hell or High Water, but with much softer edges to his aging character this time.  Making an impressive big screen debut, Cynthia Erivo brings layers to her character of Darlene Sweet, and as well as acting, Erivo performs a lot of the film’s soundtrack too (perhaps not surprising, given she has a Tony, a Grammy and an Emmy already for her Broadway work).  Jon Hamm continues to impress me with his choice of projects (I loved him in last year’s Baby Driver) with another role which makes effective use of his natural charm and charisma.

Whilst I’m no fan of the Fifty Shades franchise, I’ve really enjoyed Dakota Johnson’s work outside of that series, and she seems just as well suited to comedy (like How to be Single, or the cancelled-before-its-time TV series Ben & Kate) as she is to drama.  Her role in Bad Times at the El Royale is perhaps the most mysterious of all the main cast, as she refuses to even divulge her name when checking in, despite the forlorn pleas of overworked hotel clerk Miles Miller, who is played with quiet desperation by Lewis Pullman (son of Bill Pullman) in arguably his biggest role to date.  The marketing for this film has also put Chris Hemsworth front and centre, so his involvement is hardly a secret, but it is fair to say that his role is effectively an extended cameo (albeit a plot-critical one) rather than a major part.  And just as Ghostbusters gave him the chance to show off a different side of his range in terms of his comedy, his character in Bad Times at the El Royale couldn’t be further from his heroic Thor role.

“…some of Goddard’s shots are genuinely beautiful…”

Drew Goddard also deserves praise for the gorgeous look and feel of the film.  The period feel of the late 60s setting, coupled with the stylised neo-noir atmosphere, infuses the whole film with not only a sense of style, but also a strange sense of unease reflecting the changing times.  And visually, some of Goddard’s shots are genuinely beautifully framed (with an extended tracking shot in particular being impressively staged), and his use of mirrors and reflections throughout helps to intensify the otherworldly feel of the motel.

Overall, the film perhaps had the potential to be another 5-star cult classic like Cabin in the Woods, but unfortunately there are a few minor quibbles.  Although the pacing of the film is deliberately slow as part of the technique to gradually crank up the tension, I couldn’t help but feel that the 2 hour 20 minutes run time was a little long, and the pacing could have been tightened up a little without losing any of the suspense.  Equally, after such a meticulously slow-burn build up, the actual denouement felt ever so slightly underwhelming, and lacked some of the punch that the rest of the film had delivered.

But these are just minor quibbles, and are merely why the film isn’t quite the unqualified masterpiece that it was perhaps so close to being.  If you’re a fan of twisty, character driven, neo-noir thrillers then you should find a lot to enjoy in Bad Times at the El Royale, which is sadly precisely the kind of film that Hollywood seems increasingly reluctant to make these days.