Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional U.S. city of Maybrook, Pennsylvania, the horror film “Weapons” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Asians and African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: After 17 third-grade students with the same teacher suddenly walk out of their homes at the same time at 2:17 a.m. and disappear, the community is gripped with fear, suspicion and anger over finding the missing children and punishing whoever is responsible.
Culture Audience: “Weapons” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Zach Cregger, and well-made horror movies that pack a big punch.
Cary Christopher in “Weapons” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)
One of the creepiest horror stories you can see in any given year, “Weapons” is a standout original film about the mystery of several children who disappeared on the same night. The movie has an unforgettable showdown that’s disturbing and darkly hilarious. Although some parts of “Weapons” can occasionally drag with slow pacing, the movie is an above-average blend of supernatural scares, psychological thrills and bloody gore for viewers who can tolerate seeing this type of film.
Written and directed by Zach Cregger, “Weapons” takes place in the fictional U.S. city of Maybrook, Pennsylvania. The main clue that Maybrook is in Pennsylvania is the police department’s phone number has the area code 814. (“Weapons” was actually filmed in Atlanta.) Maybrook is a suburban middle-class community that has a small police force.
The movie is narrated intermittently by an unnamed girl (voiced by Scarlett Sher), who is an observer of how a traumatic event affected the community. The narrator explains that in the early-morning hours of 2:17 a.m., 17 third graders at Maybrook Elementary School walked and ran out of their homes and then disappeared. Security camera footage showed that the children (ages 8 and 9) had their arms outstretched as they left their homes. None of the security camera footage showed the children being kidnapped or abducted by anyone.
Later that day, an investigation discovered that all 17 of the students had the same teacher: Justine Gandy (played by Julia Garner), a new Maybrook Elementary School employee, who showed up for work and saw that all but one of her students was absent. The only student who was in the class was Alex Lilly (played by Cary Christopher), who says he doesn’t know what happened to his missing classmates. Alex also says he doesn’t know why he was the only one of his classmates who didn’t go missing.
Extensive searches of Maybrook’s outdoor areas are done with police and several volunteers. The search does not reveal any clues. Conspiracy theories and mistrust spread like wildfire in the community. Eventually, a $50,000 reward is offered to anyone who has information that will directly lead to the safe return of the children.
At a town hall meeting, several angry members of the community confront Maybrook Elementary School principal Marcus Miller (played by Benedict Wong) and Justine, who is soft-spoken but can get angry and defensive when pushed too far. The people in the audience demand an explanation for why the only kids who are missing had Justine as a teacher. Marcus and Justine, who are fully cooperating with the investigation, vehemently deny that they or the school had anything to do with the disappearances.
One of the angriest people at this town hall meeting is Archer Graff (played by Josh Brolin), whose son Matthew Graff (played by Luke Speakman) is one of the missing kids. Archer outright accuses Justine of either beng responsible for the disappearances or knowing who’s responsible. Archer owns a small construction company and eventually becomes a vigilante investigator on his own when he feels that law enforcement isn’t doing enough. Fans of Cregger’s 2022 horror movie “Barbarian” will be pleased to see “Barbarian” co-star Justin Long in a cameo in “Weapons,” in which Long portrays Gary, a parent of one of the missing children.
Parts of the movie don’t ring true. Something as bizarre as 17 children inexplicably going missing at the same time in the same city would be big news all over the world. There would be a media circus that’s not depicted in this movie. The FBI would also probably get involved, but in the movie, the only person who’s seen as being in charge of the investigation is a Maybrook police captain named Ed (played by Toby Huss), who has no answers or updates when Archer has a tension-filled meeting with him.
The majority of “Weapons” is told in six chapters, with each chapter seen from the perspective of a different character, who are all connected to the disapparances in some way. Without giving away too many details, here is what is eventually revealed about each of these six characters:
Justine becomes a despised outcast in the community and is eventually placed on a paid leave of absence from the school. She begins abusing alcohol to cope with the stress. She is under strict orders not to contact Alex, as long as the children remain missing. Justine also has a troubled past that Archer finds out about and makes him even more suspicious of Justine.
Archer becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to Matthew and the other missing kids. He crosses boundaries that make a few of the parents uncomfortable. Archer uses his layout knowledge of the Maybrook neighorbhoods during his investigation. And he gets into an inevitable direct confrontation with Justine.
Paul Morgan (played by Alden Ehrenreich) is an ex-boyfriend of Justine’s who is a patrol cop and not a detective on the case, but his father-in-law is police captain Ed. Paul is a recovering alcoholic and is married to a woman named Donna (played by June Diane Raphael), who wants to start a family with Paul. Justine contacts Paul for some emotional comfort during this difficult time.
James (played by Austin Abrams) is a young homeless man who is addicted to meth and possibly other drugs, which he smokes and injects. James steals to get money for his addictions. He has a more than one encounter with Paul. James also plays a very pivotal role in the movie’s story.
Marcus does his best to shield Justine from disciplinary action and the wrath of people who think she’s responsible for the mysterious disappearances. However, Justine defies some of Marcus’ orders, so he has no choice but to put her on a forced leave of absence. Not much else is revealed about Marcus except that he has a husband named Terry (played by Clayton Farris), and they seem to be a happy couple.
Alex has kept mostly to himself after the disappearances were discovered. His unnamed parents (played by Whitmer Thomas and Callie Schuttera) have become recluses during the period of time that the children have gone missing. When Alex sees Justine, he tries to avoid talking to her. Alex’s aunt Gladys (played by Amy Madigan), an elderly woman who says she’s the older sister of Alex’s mother, shows up to help take care of Alex.
“Weapons” layers these chapters in a way where each chapter ends on a cliffhanger, until the movie’s last scenes, where all the characters’ stories come together for more revelations. It’s a great narrative structure for the movie because it keeps the suspense going throughout the story. Sensitive viewers be warned: “Weapons” has a finale that is not for people who get easily nauseated by bloody violence on screen.
The “Weapons” musical score (written Cregger, Ryan Holladay and Hays Holladay) is particularly effective in enhancing the moods for each scene. There are touches of twisted comedy, even in the most horrifying moments. It’s the movie’s way of diffusing some of the most unnerving situations shown in the film. These comedic touches are calibrated with the right tone so as not to look completely out of place.
The cast members’ performances (especially from Garner, Abrams and Madigan) are believable for their characters—even though the movie’s “mass disappearance” plot is not based on something that happened in real life. However, real-life horrors—such as not knowing what happened to missing children, experiencing illegal police brutality, and descending into an alcohol-fueled depression—are all explored in the movie in impactful ways. “Weapons” is an intentionally unsettling film that taps into many people’s worst fears but leaves enough hope about human resilience when attacked by evil.
Warner Bros. Pictures will release “Weapons” in U.S. cinemas on August 8, 2025.
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Vanessa Kirby, Pedro Pascal and Joseph Quinn in “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” (Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios)
Culture Representation: Taking place in the late 1960s, in New York City and in outer space, the sci-fi/fantasy/action film “Fantastic Four: First Steps” (based on Marvel Comics characters) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans, Latin people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: Four astronauts with superpowers join forces against an evil, planet-eating god that lives in outer space and has recruited a silver-armored surfer to be his warrior messenger.
Culture Audience: “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of superhero movies, Marvel Comics, and action films where the superhero team is a tight-knit family.
Julia Garner in “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” (Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios)
“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” is a step in the right direction for relaunching Marvel Comics’ Fantastic Four characters into a movie series for theatrical release. It’s an entertaining but not exceptionally outstanding improvement from 2005’s tepid “Fantastic Four,” 2007’s underwhelming “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” and 2015’s dreadful reboot “Fantastic Four,” which had completely new cast members from the previous “Fantastic Four” movies. Instead of being an origin story about how these superheroes got their powers, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” shows this quartet as an established group of beloved superheroes whose loyalties to family and the world are put to the test. Great action sequences and a unique plot outweigh the film’s mixed-bag chemistry and bland villains.
Directed by Matt Shakman, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” was written by Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer. The movie takes place sometime in the late 1960s in New York City (the home city of the Fantastic Four) and in outer space. The movie’s Earth is an alternate version called Earth 828. It’s revealed near the end of the film that 828 stands for August 28, the birthday of Fantastic Four creator Jack Kirby, who died in 1994 at age 76. (“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” was actually filmed in London and in Spain.)
The Fantastic Four, who all live together, are heroic astronauts who are at the forefront of the Space Race, which had the United States competing to be the world leader in outer-space travel. The Fantastic Four have the nickname the First Family of Marvel because they were Marvel Comics’ first group of superheroes to be members of the same family. Here are the members of the Fantastic Four, who all got their superpowers four years earlier, during a space mission that went awry because of a cosmic storm:
Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic (played by Pedro Pascal) is the intellectual scientist/inventor of the group. His superpower is the ability to stretch like rubber for great lengths. Reed is the one who is most likely to obsess over scientific theories and mathematical equations to find solutions to problems. Reed also still feels guilty about the botched mission that made their lives anything but normal.
Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (played by Vanessa Kirby) is Reed’s level-headed wife. Her superpower is the ability to be invisible and to move large objects with her mind. Sue is the best out of the four when it comes to diplomatic relations with the public. She is also the head the Future Foundation, where she does a lot of work as a diplomat to help bring about world peace.
Johnny Storm/Human Torch (played by Joseph Quinn) is Sue’s impulsive, daredevil younger brother. His superpower is the ability to turn his body into a flaming torch and to shoot fireballs. Johnny is a bachelor who is considered the “heartthrob” of the group. And true to his Human Torch nickname, he’s a bit of a “hothead.”
Ben Grimm/The Thing (played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach), a former fighter pilot, is Reed’s best friend since their college days. His superpower is his extraordinary strength because the outer-space accident left him looking like a large man made of rocks. Ben is also a bachelor and is actually a gentle giant underneath his fearsome exterior.
“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” begins by showing Sue finding out the results of a home pregnancy test that she’s taken. She’s pregnant, after two years of trying to conceive a baby. Sue shows Reed the results of the test. They are both happy but also cautiously optimistic because they don’t know if their child will be biologically “normal” or not.
Reed and Sue say to each other about having this child: “I really want to do this.” Sue then tells Reed, “Nothing’s going to change.” We all know she’s wrong about that because this movie would not exist if everything stayed the same for the Fantastic Four. Reed and Sue later find out that their unborn child is a boy.
Also living in the Fantastic Four household is a robot named H.E.R.B.I.E. (Humanoid Experimental Robot B-Type Integrated Electronics), who resembles the robot title character of 2008’s “WALL-E.” H.E.R.B.I.E. (voiced by Matthew Wood) is a helpful assistant with numerous skills that come handy in the lab, the kitchen or wherever he’s needed. H.E.R.B.I.E. also has the same qualities of being like a cute pet.
One of the best things about “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” is that it’s not overstuffed with characters and subplots. The story is fairly uncomplicated and easy to follow, but there are some moments that get a little mundane and predictable. And, quite frankly, there are more fascinating and more appealing superhero groups in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), such as the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy.
A mysterious being called the Silver Surfer (played by Julia Garner), who is completely silver and travels through space on a surfboard, arrives on Earth, announces to the Fantastic Four that she has a message to deliver to Earth from a giant god named Galactus (played by Ralph Ineson), who lives in outer space and eats planets: “Your planet is marked for death. Your planet will be consumed by the Devourer … There’s nothing you can do about it.”
Marvel Comics and other on-screen depictions of the Silver Surfer made this character a male character. The gender swap of the Silver Surfer in “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” results in a subplot of Johnny developing a physical attraction/infatuation with her. It’s later revealed that the Silver Surfer’s real name is Shalla-Bal. Flashbacks briefly show some of her personal background, but she’s still an underdeveloped character who doesn’t say much.
After the Silver Surfer delivers this gloom-and-doom message and leaves to go back to outer space, Johnny follows her to see where she came from, but she fights him off like he’s a stalker, because he basically is a stalker in this moment. Johnny is defeated and falls back down to Earth, but he’s smitten, even though the Silver Surfer barely talks to him. Maybe Johnny is attracted to the skin-tight metallic silver body suit that she seems to be wearing.
Later, Johnny describes her as a “sexy alien” and says he “had a moment” of connecting with her. It’s kind of a strange part of the movie because Johnny could have his pick of many women on Earth. But if this is the movie’s way of saying that Johnny has some kind of kink for outer-space aliens who don’t look entirely human, who are we to judge? Later, in a battle scene when Sue tells Johnny to kill the Silver Surfer, he quips like a dejected bachelor: “Just when I thought I met someone interesting.”
The Fantastic Four then travel by spaceship to track down Galactus on their own, as if no one else on Earth can go in a spaceship to find this monster. Official marketing materials for “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” have already revealed that the son of Reed and Sue is born in this movie. Fans of the Marvel Comics already know that this son will be named Franklin.
However, the birth of Franklin in this movie is definitely not like it was in the comic books. The childbirth scene is like no other scene in the MCU. What also sets “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” apart from other MCU movies is how it shows superheroes becoming first-time parents because most superheroes are never shown as parents. “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” makes parental love the central focus of the movie’s biggest dilemma/conflict in fighting the villains.
“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” has top-notch production design and very immersive visual effects. And there’s no doubt that the movie has a talented cast. Pascal, Kirby, Quinn and Moss-Bachrach all bring charismatic sparks to their respective characters while staying true to the characters’ original personalities from Marvel Comics. It’s just that the characters’ dialogue in this movie isn’t particularly special. Garner and Ineson are perfectly fine in their roles, considering the Silver Surfer and Galactus are very robotic in “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.” Almost nothing in this movie is shown or told about Galactus’ origin story.
Supporting characters include Lynne Nichols (played by Sarah Niles), the Fantastic Four’s chief of staff, who doesn’t do much except stand by and act like a loyal administrative employee. She’s a member of the Fantastic Four entourage, but Lynne isn’t the type of trusted “inner circle” employee who’s privy to all of the Fantastic Four’s secrets, in the way that Alfred Pennyworth is for Batman. Most of Lynne’s screen time consists of her reacting with approval to whatever the Fantastic Four are doing or have done. Another side character is Ted Gilbert (played by Mark Gatiss), the host/star of a “Tonight Show”-styled variety show called “The Ted Gilbert Show,” who makes commentary on his show about the Fantastic Four.
“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” makes a half-hearted attempt to give Ben a love interest when he develops a mutual attraction to Rachel Rozman (played by Natasha Lyonne), who works for a community center. Ben meets friendly Rachel when he returns to his childhood home on Yancy Street. Some children behind a fence at the community center ask him to lift up a Volkswagen Beetle on a nearby street, he accommodates their request, and Rachel comes out of the building to talk to Ben.
The short interactions between Ben and Rachel are limited to only two scenes that are far apart from each other. “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” has a few other scenes that show how lovelorn Ben feels isolated from having a “normal” life because of his physical appearance. This aspect of Ben’s personal life is really sidelined in the movie because the main focus is on Reed and Sue becoming parents.
The Fantastic Four are the MCU’s most serious-minded group of superheroes so far. Don’t expect any wisecracking comedians in this quartet. Some of their jokes fall kind of flat. The movie’s funniest character is Harvey Elder/Mole Man (played by Paul Walter Hauser), a former Fantastic Four enemy who has created a society of Moleoids, who live underground with him in a community called Subterranea. Harvey, who is depicted as an unpredictable eccentric, brings some comic relief to the movie. There’s an entire backstory about Harvey that the movie ignores because he’s not in the movie long enough to warrant a lot of information about his past.
The chemistry between the characters in this version of the Fantastic Four isn’t entirely convincing. Ben is supposed to be Reed’s best friend, but Ben spends more time hanging out with Johnny. As for any marital passion between Reed and Sue, there’s more heat generated from four lit matchsticks than any romantic love that these two spouses show on screen. In this movie, Reed and Sue seem more like very compatible co-workers than a husband and a wife who are supposed to be in love with each other.
Despite these shortcomings, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” isn’t boring. It’s certainly engaging in many ways, and it can be enjoyed as a stand-alone film—unlike other MCU films that make people feel like they need to watch several previous MCU films and TV series to understand what’s happening. In “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” the mid-credits scene takes place four years after the events in the movie and is a preview of 2026’s “Avengers: Doomsday.” The movie’s end-credits scene is a non-essential animated 1960s-styled homage to the Fantastic Four. Ultimately, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” isn’t top-tier MCU, but it’s better than the average superhero movie.
20th Century Studios will release “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” in U.S. cinemas on July 25, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in rural Oregon and briefly in San Francisco, the horror film “Wolf Man” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Two spouses and their pre-teen daughter go on a trip to the husband’s childhood home in a remote wooded area in Oregon, where they encounter a werewolf who traps the family and bites the husband.
Culture Audience: “Wolf Man” will appeal mainly to people who don’t mind watching slow-paced werewolf movies that don’t do anything clever or inventive.
Julia Garner, Matilda Firth and Christopher Abbott in “Wolf Man” (Photo by Nicola Dove/Universal Pictures)
“Wolf Man” takes longer to show the story’s wolf transformation than it does to watch paint to dry, which would be a better alternative than watching this sluggish and nonsensical horror movie. Adequate visual effects can’t save this mess. Considering how many movies there are about werewolves, it’s completely disappointing that “Wolf Man” does nothing unique and lazily stays stuck in a basic and derivative plot.
Directed by Leigh Whannell (who co-wrote the “Wolf Man” screenplay with Corbett Tuck”), “Wolf Man” uses the most cliché idea in horror movies: People experience terror in a remote wooded area. There is a relatively small number of people with speaking roles in “Wolf Man.” And all of these characters are as bland as bland can be.
“Wolf Man” begins in 1995, somewhere in rural mountainous area in central Oregon. (“Wolf Man” was actually filmed in New Zealand.) An introductory caption says that a hiker went missing in this area and came back with a fever that the indigenous people of the area attributed to a wolf bite. It’s not a secret that “Wolf Man” is about a man who turns into a werewolf. But getting there turns out to be a long-winded slog with very little suspense.
In this part of Oregon in 1995, a man named Grady Lovell (played by Sam Jaeger) is seen taking his son Blake Lovell (played by Zac Chandler), who’s about 8 or 9 years old, out in the woods so that they can go hunting together. Grady is stern and strict with Blake and orders him not to stray too far. Blake’s mother is not seen or mentioned in the movie.
Grady loses his temper and yells at Blake after Blake briefly gets separated from Grady in the woods. Blake explains apologetically, “I wanted to get closer to the deer.” There are signs that there’s a wolf nearby because wolf sounds are heard. On the ground, there’s also a dead animal that looks like it was attacked by another animal.
In the woods, a creature is seen quickly running near Grady and Blake. It runs by so fast, it looks almost like a blur. It’s obviously the wolf, but Grady lies to Blake and says that the animal is a bear. That’s the end of their hunting trip.
At home in the farmhouse where they live, Blake eavesdrops on Grady, who is talking on a CB radio to someone named Dan (voiced by Whannell), in a conversation where Grady says he “almost shot it.” You’d have to be completely unaware of what this movie is about if you can’t guess that the “it” is the werewolf on the loose. Grady turns around and looks irritated when he sees Blake standing in the open doorway, because now Grady knows that Blake heard this conversation.
“Wolf Man” abruptly cuts to 30 years later, in 2025. Blake is now living in San Francisco with his journalist wife Charlotte (played by Julia Garner) and their daughter Ginger (played by Matilda Firth), who’s about 8 or 9 years old. Blake is a writer, but he tells someone later in the movie that he’s between jobs. Don’t expect the movie to show or tell what type of writer Blake is because he’s never seen writing anything.
Regardless of what Blake does to get money, he thinks his most important job is to protect Ginger, who is a generically nice and obedient child. When Blake and Ginger walk together on a busy city street, he scolds her for straying a little too far (sound familiar?) because a man who looks mentally ill and homeless makes an aggressive remark to her. This movie is not subtle at all in showing how Blake is a lot more like his father than he would like to think he is.
Conversations in the movie reveal that Blake and Charlotte have been drifting apart because she spends a lot of time at work. Blake has a closer bond with Ginger than Charlotte has. Blake seems to want to talk with Charlotte about their marriage being in trouble, but she remains aloof and unwilling to discuss it.
It’s around this time that Blake gets a notice in the mail that his father Grady, who was missing for years, has now been officially declared dead. Blake has inherited the house where Blake grew up in Oregon. Blake has to go to Oregon to settle some legal affairs, but he doesn’t want to go alone.
And so, Blake suggests to Charlotte that they both go with Ginger for a family getaway trip to this remote area and stay at the family farmhouse, which hasn’t been inhabited for years. Blake says it will give them a chance to “recharge” and work on their relationship. Charlotte reluctantly agrees. They travel to Oregon by using the family’s SUV, with Blake doing the driving.
On the drive to the farmhouse in the woods, Blake gets lost. However, a former neighbor named Derek (played by Benedict Hardie), who’s about the same age as Blake, happens to be perched in a makeshift guard post in the woods. When Blake introduces himself and explains what he’s doing there, Derek remembers Blake from their childhoods. Derek is the son of Dan (who is never seen in the movie), the man who was talking to Grady by CB radio in the conversation that young Blake overheard.
Derek offers to show Blake where the Lovell family house is and gets in the SUV as a passenger. It isn’t long before all hell breaks loose. Blake is not too far from the house when he sees a hairy-looking man standing right in front of him on the road and serves sharply to avoid hitting him. The SUV crashes, leading to a harrowing scene that’s actually more suspenseful than the tedious scenes that follow.
Because the trailer for “Wolf Man” already reveals that Blake is going to turn into a werewolf, by the time the scene with the car accident happens, you can guess how Blake is going to get bitten. Blake gets a deep bloody gash on his right arm. This is the first indication that things will not go well with Blake.
Why can’t the Lovell family get help? Derek can’t help, for a reason that is shown in the movie. After the car crash, the SUV is unusable, and apparently there’s no cell phone service in this location. All they have in the house for outside communication is that old CB radio system, which is rusty and barely works.
These are among the many ridiculous scenarios contrived in “Wolf Man” to keep the Lovell family “stuck” in the house for an awfully long time. The reason why it all looks so stupid is that not once does Charlotte try to walk around to see if she can get a signal on her cell phone. Not once does Blake (who lived in the area for years) suggest that they try to find the closest neighbors or anyone who can help.
All of it is just a just a long, slow buildup to Blake’s werewolf transformation. His skin starts changing, and then he can no longer speak or understand a human language. When he sees Charlotte and Ginger, everything gets blurry, their eyes look like they’re glowing, and the language they speak sounds garbled and muffled to him. The cinematography and visual effects give “Wolf Man” some ominous-looking and striking visuals, but they can’t make up for a weak story.
The cast members’ performances in “Wolf Man” are stifled by a dreadfully dull screenplay, although Firth does a very good job in scenes where Ginger is supposed to be terrified. There are inconsistences in the terror scenes. In one scene, Charlotte doesn’t even flinch when a transformed Blake literally gets up in her face as a werewolf and stares her down. Later in the movie, Charlotte screams and runs away from werewolf Blake, even though he looks essentially the same as he did before when they had their staredown.
As for the werewolf that’s on the loose outside, the identity of this creature is eventually revealed. And it will surprise no one who paid attention to the obvious clues. Because it takes so long for Blake to transform into a werewolf, “Wolf Man” wastes a lot of time in dragging out what viewers already know is supposed to happen. The Lovell family is trapped in the woods, but viewers of “Wolf Man” might feel trapped into hoping that this underwhelming horror flick might get better as it goes along, but it never does.
Universal Pictures released “Wolf Man” in U.S. cinemas on January 17, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in South Australia, the dramatic film “The Royal Hotel” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Aboriginal people and one Asian) portraying the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Two young female tourists from Canada take a live-in bartending job at a shabby and sordid pub in a remote, male-dominated mining town, and they experience various levels of danger and harassment.
Culture Audience: “The Royal Hotel” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Julia Garner and movies about subtle and not-so-subtle sexual tensions and power-based dynamics between men and women.
Ursula Yovich and Hugo Weaving in “The Royal Hotel” (Photo courtesy of Neon)
“The Royal Hotel” is a realistic observation of how two female friends can have very different reactions to being in the same male-dominated environment. Despite a few story flaws, the movie accurately shows how people try to dismiss harassment as “joking.” “The Royal Hotel” had its world premiere at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival and its Canadian premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.
Written and directed by Kitty Green, “The Royal Hotel” touches on many of the same themes that are in Green’s 2020 film “The Assistant.” Both movies are about how women navigate in an enviroment where men have almost all of the power, and most of the men in that environment abuse that power through misogynistic harassment or violence. Julia Garner stars in both movies.
“The Assistant” is based partially on real-life experiences of administrative assistants of Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced entertainment mogul who became a convicted and imprisoned rapist. “The Royal Hotel” is also inspired by real events: The movie is based on the 2017 Australian documentary “Hotel Coolgardie,” which is about two young Scandanavian women who became trapped in a remote mining town in Australia.
That’s what happens to Canadian tourists Hanna (played by Garner) and Liv (played by Jessica Henwick), who are best friends leading a nomadic existence. Hanna (the responsible and cautious friend) and Liv (the free-spirited and spontaneous friend) aren’t really on vacation, but they don’t have any immediate plans to go back to Canada. They both like to party, but Hanna doesn’t drink alcohol. It’s later revealed that Hanna’s mother abused alcohol when Hanna was a child.
In the beginning of the movie, Hanna and Liv are partying at a nightclub somewhere in Australia when Liv discovers (after her credit card is declined) that they have run out of money. Hanna and Liv are in a work/travel program that helps people find temporary jobs in places where they are visiting. It’s never made clear in the movie how long Hanna and Liv have been living this way.
At an office appointment, an unnamed woman (played by Bree Bai), who works for this program, informs Liv and Hanna that the only immediate job opening available is a bartending gig at a pub in a converted hotel in a remote mining town in Australia. This office worker tells Liv and Hanna that the job, which includes free lodging for the pub employees, involves a lot of “male attention,” because most of the people who live in this area are men. The office employee describes the job as something that attracts a lot of young women. She tries to make it sound like it would be adventurous to work there.
From the beginning, Hanna feels uneasy about this job offer and is reluctant to take the job because she thinks it might be dangerous. Liv doesn’t have any of those concerns and asks out of curiosity about this remote location: “Will there be kangaroos?” Because they are desperate for money, Hanna and Liv accept this job offer. It’s a decision that they will later regret.
Because Hanna and Liv can’t afford to have their own car in their current circumstances, the pub’s manager Carol (played by Ursula Yovich) gives a car ride to Hanna and Liv to this unnamed, desolate town in South Australia. (“The Royal Hotel” was filmed on location in South Australia.) At first, Carol has a gruff and unfriendly attitude toward the two pals. The pub is located in a shabby place that used to be known as the Royal Hotel. Hanna and Liv plan to live and work there for only a few weeks to make enough money to go back to their carefree lifestyle of partying while traveling.
Hanna and Liv will be replacing two other young women: Jules (played by Alex Malone) and Cassie (played by Kate Cheel), who are close friends and originally from Great Britain. Jules and Cassie are “party girls” too, but Jules is more talkative and more extroverted than Cassie. Hanna and Liv first meet Jules and Cassie in the living room of the messy suite area where Hanna and Liv will be staying. Cassie and Jules are startled out of a drunken stupor when Hanna and Liv arrive. Jules laughs when Hanna and Liv ask if this place has WiFi, because there is no WiFi service in this area. Cell phone service is also spotty and rare.
During the course of the movie, Hanna and Liv are targets of hostile sexism from men who are used to getting away with it. However, Hanna and Liv react differently. Hanna thinks it’s offensive and often isn’t afraid to say so. Liv makes excuses and says it’s just part of the “culture” where they are. “The Royal Hotel” has many examples of how women can often be unwitting or deliberate allies and enablers to sexists who want to treat women as inferior to men, thereby helping perpetuate this vicious cycle.
The warning signs about this awful job are obvious from the beginning, when Hanna and Liv first meet Billy (played by Hugo Weaving), the disheveled owner of this struggling business. The shower that Hanna and Liv have to use isn’t working properly, so Billy (who is in his 60s) angrily storms into the room to fix it, and he strikes up a conversation with his two new employees. During this conversation, Hanna mentions that she can speak some Spanish and Portuguese. In response, Billy calls Hanna a “smart cunt,” in a tone of voice that makes it clear that he thinks Hanna is being uppity. Hanna is so shocked by this insult from her new boss, she doesn’t say anything to him about it.
Hanna and Liv know nothing about bartending, so Billy has to train them. Hanna figures out very quickly that she and Liv (and the other young female employees before them) were only hired to be objectified by horny male customers. Liv knows it too, but she doesn’t seem to care, because she thinks they can have a good time anyway. Liv often scolds Hanna for being too “uptight” over the increasingly alarming and hostile actions that the two women get from some of the customers. Liv convinces Hanna to stay just a few weeks so they can make enough money to go to Australia’s Bondi Beach.
The pub’s customers consist mostly of men in their 20s, 30s and 40s. The vast majority of them work in a nearby mine. One of the rare women in the pub is a regular customer named Glenda (played by Barbara Lowing), who is about the same age as Billy. Glenda, who is often drunk, craves attention from the men in the pub, where the atmosphere (not surprisingly) is often rowdy and vulgar. Glenda has an outdated and harmful attitude that men should be allowed to get away with sexual harassment just because they’re men.
On the last night before Cassie and Jess leave the area, they both get very drunk and dance on the pub’s countertop, much to the delight of the male customers. At one point, Cassie and Jess (who are both wearing skirts) lift up their clothes to flash their naked private parts on their upper and lower bodies. The two women don’t want to be groped in their private parts and have to fight off the men who try to commit this sexual assault, which is excused as “drunken antics.” Liv smirks when she quips to a horrified Hanna: “That will be us in a few weeks.”
One of the young male customers named Matty (played by Toby Wallace) plays a prank on Liv by telling her that he wants a drink called Dickens Cider. Liv says she’s never heard of that drink. It takes Liv (who’s not as street smart as she thinks she is) a few minutes to figure out that Dickens Cider is not a real drink but a pun for “dick inside her.” Liv laughs off the joke, while Hanna doesn’t think it’s so funny.
It soon becomes apparent that Matty is attracted to Hanna. In an effort to impress Hanna (who rebuffs his advances), Matty eventually says he’s sorry for his crude prank. Matty can see that Hanna is repulsed by a lot of what she sees in the pub, so he quickly switches gears and tries to give the impression that he’s the “nice guy” in the group. Meanwhile, another young customer named Teeth (played by James Frecheville), who is often teased by the men for being socially awkward, develops a crush on Liv.
And in a sleazy place like this pub, there’s always at least one creep who gives the impression that he’s just one drink away from committing rape. In this pub, this cretin is Dolly (played by Daniel Henshall), a hate-filled loner who likes to bully and harass people for no reason. Dolly will get no sympathy from “The Royal Hotel” viewers when they see what he does.
It would be very easy for any outside observer to say, “Why don’t Hanna and Liv just leave?” It’s not that simple. Hanna and Liv have no money and no means of transportation (the nearest public transportation is too far away to walk), so unless they can find someone in this land of strangers to drive them out of this hellish place for free, they’re out of luck. Carol won’t help because she needs Hanna and Liv to stay as bartenders for the pub.
All Hanna and Liv have to do is get paid and then use the money to leave, right? Wrong. After a while, Hanna and Liv find out that Billy is an alcoholic who hasn’t been paying anyone to whom he owes money. A local vendor named Tommy (played by Baykali Ganambarr), who delivers food and drinks to the pub, hasn’t been paid by Billy for the past three months. Billy owes Tommy $4,300. And eventually, Hanna and Liv see that Billy has no intention of paying them either.
Billy isn’t doing anything to help his failing business. There’s a scene where the phone rings in the nearly empty pub. Billy picks up the phone, and without even finding out who’s calling and why, he rudely shouts, “We’re busy!” And then he abruptly hangs up the phone. Through conversations, it’s revealed that Billy inherited and ruined this once-thriving family business, which was started by his paternal grandfather.
And where is Carol during all of this mess? Carol, who is Billy’s lover, keeps mostly to herself in the small trailer where they live next to the pub. It’s never really explained why Billy and Carol live in a trailer when there are plenty of rooms in this former hotel. However, considering how run-down the place is and how some of the equipment keeps malfunctioning (with unreliable Billy being the only repair person), it can be assumed that most of the rooms in this place are uninhabitable. Carol has a no-nonsense attitude and isn’t as terrible as she first appears to be.
Unfortunately, the trailer for “The Royal Hotel” shows too much of what happens in the movie, even if these spoiler details are just brief glimpses in a quick-cutting montage. Viewers will probably enjoy “The Royal Hotel” more if they haven’t seen the movie’s trailer first. Regardless of how much people know about this movie before seeing it, the acting throughout is above-average and makes this movie worth watching.
Garner and Henwick give riveting performances as two friends who find their loyalties to each other tested by their contrasting attitudes toward misogynistic sexism. The movie also has very authentic depictions of how sexual harassers and horrible bosses often test the boundaries of what they can get away with and go further past those boundaries if they aren’t stopped. Hanna (who is obviously the story’s hero) finds out that she has more courage and inner strength than she originally thought she did.
“The Royal Hotel” is not without its flaws. In the last third of the movie, someone suddenly makes an appearance that doesn’t really ring true. It looks a little too contrived. The movie also doesn’t do a very good job of explaining Liv’s background and why she puts up with so much blatant and unacceptable harassment. There’s a slight hint that Liv is running away from something traumatic when she’s asked by a customer how she ended up in this remote place, and Liv replies that it’s because it’s far away from where she used to live.
Hanna’s background is also vague. The only information that viewers will learn about her past is that she grew up with a mother who was probably an alcoholic (even though Hanna denies that her mother’s drinking problem was that serious), and Hanna studied business and marketing while she was in college. It’s also never really made clear how long Hanna and Liv have been friends. However, Hanna and Liv certainly find out what kind of friendship they have in these tough circumstances.
Overall, “The Royal Hotel” is a capably written and skillfully directed movie that shows how victims can be trapped in horrendous situations where the people who could help them are the same people who don’t want the trapped victims to leave. The movie also serves as a warning that abuse is abuse and should not be dismissed as “gray areas” or “blurred lines.” “The Royal Hotel” can keep viewers guessing about what will happen next, but by the end of the movie, there should be no uncertainty about who and what caused the worst problems.
Neon will release “The Royal Hotel” in select U.S. cinemas on October 6, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, “The Assistant” features a predominantly white cast of characters who are middle-to-upper-class Americans in a male-dominated, competitive office environment, although some Asians are briefly represented as visiting Japanese businessmen.
Culture Clash: An obvious battle of the sexes, “The Assistant” portrays men as mostly explicitly or implicitly sexist against the female protagonist.
Culture Audience: This movie will appeal primarily to those who like arthouse think pieces that have a lot of low-key “slice of life” moments instead of big, dramatic scenes.
Julia Garner in “The Assistant” (Photo by Ty Johnson/Bleecker Street)
“The Assistant” writer/director Kitty Green, a filmmaker from Australia, says that the Harvey Weinstein scandal inspired her to do this fictional dramatic film, and she conducted dozens of interviews with women who survived work-related abuse and harassment. But before people watch the movie, they should know that it’s not a big showdown about a crusader getting justice. Rather, “The Assistant” is more of a character study of why sexual harassment/abuse is enabled in the workplace.
If you prefer your entertainment to be like a suspenseful Lifetime movie or a “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” episode, then “The Assistant” might not be your cup of tea. But if you want the subject matter of workplace abuse and sexism to be tackled in a more realistic manner on screen, then you’ll appreciate that Green took a more subtle and less predictable approach to telling this story. Green previously directed the documentaries “Casting JonBenet” and “Ukraine Is Not a Brothel,” so she has a penchant for doing female-centric movies that explore society’s gender roles and how they influence power dynamics and exploitation.
In partnership with the New York Women’s Foundation, 10% of profits from “The Assistant” will go to support NYWF’s grantmaking to “women-led, community-based organizations that promote the economic security, safety and health of women and families in New York City, where the film was made,” according to the film’s production notes. (Click here for more information.)
At the heart of the story is Jane (played by the always-talented Julia Garner), a recent graduate of Northwestern University, who lives by herself in an apartment in the middle-class New York City neighborhood of Astoria, Queens. Green says she chose the name Jane for this character as a metaphor for all the Jane Does who experience what this character experiences in the movie.
Jane is a hard-working, soft-spoken employee at an unnamed successful movie/TV company, where she’s on the lowest end of the administrative assistant hierarchy. She gets up at the crack of dawn to be the first person in the office, which strongly resembles The Weinstein Company’s former headquarters in New York City’s TriBeCa area. It’s a large enough company to have locations in other cities, such as Los Angeles and London, but it’s not a massive conglomerate that can afford to be in a super-modern and pricey office building. The office vibe is corporate, with lots of men in business suits going in and out of the building, but just enough of a downtown Manhattan aura to remind people that it’s an entertainment company in a trendy part of the city.
For the first 20 minutes of the film, a mostly silent Jane does mundane office work, such as making coffee, filing papers, and booking travel arrangements. But there are enough signs to show that she is lonely and isolated in the big city. The only people outside of work she communicates with are her supportive parents via phone. It’s clear from Jane’s conversations that she spends many late nights and weekends at the office, and she has no social life because of her workaholic ways. She’s an aspiring film producer, so it’s easy to see why she want this job and is desperate to please her boss.
In the very male-dominated office, she’s treated like an expendable underling. She’s so low on the totem pole that she even has to order lunch for the two male administrative assistants who work at the desks near her. Jane has been at the company for about five weeks, so the male assistants (who are not named in the movie) constantly remind Jane in micro-aggressive ways that they have more seniority and power than she does. One of them (played by Noah Robbins) repeatedly throws a wad of paper at Jane to get her attention. The other male assistant (played by Jon Orisini) has a tendency to look over Jane’s shoulder when she’s working on the computer, as if he’s entitled to know what she’s doing and is ready to jump in and correct any mistake that he’s certain that she’ll make.
One of the few female employees seen in the office is a middle-aged cynic who is not only complicit in covering up for the predatory boss, but she also openly expresses contempt for some of the pretty young women (wannabe actresses or wannabe industry people) who have appointments to see the boss, in the hopes that he’ll give them their big breaks. After one of these eager hopefuls (whose name is Ruby, played by Makenzie Leigh) is ushered into the boss’s office for an “audition,” the female co-worker sneers to Jane that the woman is a “waste of time.”
Going against what might be expected in movies about sexual harassment in the workplace, Green (who’s a producer and co-editor of “The Assistant”) never actually shows explicit sexual abuse in the movie, nor does she ever show the boss on screen, and viewers never find out what his name is. The biggest indication that the viewers get in how the boss operates is seeing that he has several attractive young women who have private meetings alone with him in his office or in a local hotel. (Jane has the task of booking the hotel suites that he uses.)
She also notices when doing some accounting work that some signed checks that she’s responsible for recording have large amounts but no payee name on the checks. When she asks an unidentified male over the phone if her boss knows what the checks are for, she’s told in a tone of voice that yes, the boss does know, and Jane better not ask any more questions about it.
As for this mysterious and malevolent boss, viewers can hear him being verbally abusive over the phone to Jane in insulting rants that are muffled just enough that the movie never lets you hear his voice clearly, as if to say, “This could be your boss or the boss of someone you know.” Jane feels pressured to write suck-up apology emails to the boss every time he yells at her (and her nosy male colleagues even dictate what she should say in the email), which adds to Jane’s humilation. The boss also shows his manipulative side when, after one of his abusive tirades, he sends Jane an email that says, “You’re very good. I’m tough on you because I’m gonna make you great.”
In one disturbing scene, the two rotten assistants who work next to Jane listen in by phone on what’s happening in the boss’s office during one of his “private meetings” with a woman, and they laugh like two drunken frat boys at the faint sounds of sexual moaning that they know Jane can probably hear. (Based on her facial expression, she does hear what’s going on, but she’s too shocked to say anything.) The implication is clear: Someone in that office deliberately let these guys listen in by phone, because they knew they’d get a kick out of it.
The signs of sexual harassment and degradation are there, and Jane (who’s no idiot) figures out what’s going on, and becomes increasingly uncomfortable with it. The viewers of this movie see the signs too: Jane cleans up stains in her boss’ office before the other employees get there—even though the company has cleaning employees, Jane says she’s been told to personally clean the boss’s office. Jane opens a mailed box of prescription bottles filled with erection-aid medication and places the bottles in the boss’ office medicine cabinet—something that Weinstein reportedly had his assistants do in real life. Jane returns a lost earring to a distraught woman who goes back to the office, after losing the earring during a private meeting with the boss. The fear and dread in the woman’s eyes are unmistakable—she’s reluctantly returned to the scene of a crime where she was a victim.
And in case viewers aren’t sure if the boss uses a “casting couch” for his interviews with women, there’s a scene that spells it out very clearly. A group of businessmen are gathered in the boss’ office for a meeting, and while they’re waiting for the boss to arrive, one of the men laughs as he warns one of the visiting businessman who’s about to sit on a couch, “I wouldn’t sit there if I were you.”
There are also signs that the predatory boss is out of control, because he misses appointments, and Jane often has to lie to people who are looking for him. It’s because he has a habit of mysteriously disappearing from the office at the same time as the latest nubile young woman who showed up to visit him. Jane is often left to deal with the wrath of the boss’ wife, who gets furious when Jane can’t tell her where her husband is. In another scene, Jane frantically enlists the help of an executive when her boss skips a business meeting and doesn’t telling anyone where he’s gone.
There’s also a major hint that this toxic boss has a drug problem, because one of Jane’s job duties is to go through her boss’s trash can and dispose of the used hypodermic needles that she finds there. It’s never said what was in those needles, but whatever it is, the boss doesn’t want the regular cleaning people to find out, and Jane has to get rid of the needles herself.
Why would anyone put up with this miserable and dysfunctional workplace? As the brainwashed employees constantly tell Jane, she should consider herself lucky to work there, because of the opportunities she could get in the entertainment industry just by being at that job. (It’s the main reason why many former longtime Weinstein employees have confessed in post-scandal interviews that they stayed as long as they did, even though they knew Weinstein was an abusive boss.)
And yet, for all the preaching from the employees about how privileged they are to work for this company, no one actually looks happy to be there. It’s clear that all of the underlings (not just the women) and many executives stay because, just like rabbits with a carrot dangled out of their reach, they all want the glory and power that they think this job might get them if they stick around long enough and claw their way to the top.
If you’re looking for a feel-good feminist movie where Jane finds female allies, and they band together to take down the predator, this isn’t that kind of film. In fact, except for Jane, all of the women who are seen in the movie come across as either meek victims who give furtive glances, as if they want to say something but are too afraid; power-hungry shrews who look the other way (such as the boss’ wife); or desperately ambitious pretty women who may or may not know that this predatory boss will expect them to engage in sexual activity with him. In other words, Jane is the only woman in the movie who seems to have a moral compass and the courage to speak out about the abuse that she knows is going on around her.
Similarly, all the men with speaking roles in the movie (except for Jane’s father, who we only hear over the phone) are either dismissive or condescending to Jane. There’s absolutely no subtlety in portraying these male employees as either abusive villains or weak-minded followers who are complicit in their sexism. Meanwhile, Jane is portrayed as a kind-hearted heroine who’s surrounded by a bunch of soulless or vapid people. And therein lies the movie’s biggest flaw: The characters are written with such broad, black-and-white strokes that although the situations in the movie are realistic, the characters often feel underdeveloped and undeservedly clichéd.
It wouldn’t have been that hard to have at least one other smart and likable person in that office besides Jane. Even in other “boss from hell” movies (“The Devil Wears Prada,” “Swimming With Sharks”), there was at least one other sympathetic character besides the protagonist. For all the horror stories that have been exposed about Weinstein, many people inside and outside his now-defunct company said that there were a lot of good people working there. Many of them (like Jane) couldn’t afford to quit without another job lined up, which is why most people who hate their jobs stay longer than they should. The only way to excuse this movie’s main flaw is that it seems like Green wanted to make it obvious that Jane is very isolated at work. But it’s a point delivered with the subtlety of a jackhammer.
The turning point for Jane is when she finds out that her boss from hell has hired another assistant named Sienna (played by Kristine Froseth), a barely legal teen who’s fresh out of high school and has no related work experience. The boss has flown out this attractive, wide-eyed teen from Idaho (he met her in Sun Valley when he was there for a conference) and has put her up in a hotel that Jane knows her boss uses for his “private meetings.” As Jane is tasked with training this new employee, she quickly finds out that Sienna is useless around the office and that Sienna’s employment is probably a cover-up for something sleazy. (Sienna kind of senses it too in her first day on the job, when she’s told to sign some papers, and she hesitantly asks if she needs to have a lawyer.)
The movie’s most powerful scene is when Jane takes her concerns to a high-ranking human resources executive named Wilcock (played by Matthew Macfadyen), who proceeds to turn things around and make it sound like Jane’s concerns have no merit and that she’s just insecure and jealous of Sienna. He browbeats Jane to make her feel like she’s a nuisance and a nutjob. It’s the type of “gaslighting” that is often inflicted on people who report abuse, in order to intimidate them into staying silent.
After Wilcock tells Jane that he has “400 résumés” lined up from people who want her job, he then makes the ultimate manipulative move. He asks her if she thinks it’s worth it for him to take her complaint higher up, or if he should toss out the complaint. “You know how this will look,” he tells her as he shows her the skimpy notes he’s taken during the meeting. And if Jane had any doubt about which side this HR creep is on and how much dirt he really knows about the boss, those doubts are squashed when he ends the meeting by telling her that she doesn’t have anything to worry about with the boss because, “You’re not his type.”
People looking for several flashy and dramatic scenes like this one will be disappointed in the movie overall, which would be a shame, because expecting a predictable formula would be missing the whole point of how this story was told. The movie’s greatest strength is that it shows that the worst sexual harassment, employee abuse and sexism in the workplace are rarely done out in the open where there are plenty of witnesses. The abuse often takes place behind closed doors where the abuser and the victim are the only witnesses.
Sexism in the workplace, even if reported, is often dismissed as a joke. The victim is unfairly branded as a “difficult complainer” who’s “not a good fit” for the company, and then the victim is the one who gets fired or is targeted to be fired. Sympathetic co-workers and colleagues might suspect workplace abuse, but they stay silent out of fear of losing their jobs. In many cases, co-workers will side with the workplace bully if they think it will help their careers. These are some of the main reasons why so many victims are afraid to come forward.
The movie adeptly shows that amid the dull office tasks that this lowly assistant must do every day, there’s a feeling of dread and powerlessness that she and probably many other employees feel when they know they’re working for a sexual predator but they think he’s too powerful to stop, especially if he owns the company that employs them. Instead of rallying together to fight the abuse, in most situations, employees have a “mind my own business, keep my head down” way of dealing with these issues.
And the movie accurately depicts the culture of silence from people who are afraid of speaking up about abuse, for fear of retaliation, or they don’t speak up because they just don’t care. Unless harassment is happening to them and negatively affects their jobs directly, many people just don’t want to deal with it, much less talk about it. So, when people ask why it sometimes takes years for people to report work-related abuse or harassment, “The Assistant” should be essential viewing for them, because it does more to explain what’s more likely to happen in real life than any formulaic movie that wraps things up nicely in a safe and tidy bow.
Bleeker Street will release “The Assistant” in select U.S. cinemas on January 31, 2020.
