I was obsessed with Eloise at the Plaza when I was a little girl. Every time I wear the designer myself, I think about Eloise lifting her mother’s cotillion dress out of the box and whispering “she wore… Dior” . Her pink room and all of the luxuries of the Plaza were the subject of my endless little girl envy, but it also made me incredibly sad that her mom wasn’t there because half the fun of being at a hotel when I was younger was hanging out with my mom (still true). Growing up, we traveled a ton so I have been a frequent hotel guest since the age of six. I’d look forward to the big fluffy comforters, breakfast in bed, finding the ice machine on our floor and slipping away from my parents to ride on the bell cart with my brother. As and adult I look forward to pretty much all of those things but have replaced the bell cart with a room service martini.
If I could time travel, I would go back to when people used to just live in hotels for an extended period of time. There’s something so glamorous about having no idea how long you’re staying in a place. The people around you become a part-time school of fish to people watch, or they could become friends, depending on how bad your RBF is. I live about 15 blocks south of The Hotel Chelsea where Jack Kerouac, Bob Dylan and Patti Smith all lived for a time. I eat there about once every two weeks, either for a solo breakfast before work or dinner with friends. I love that the china says “The Hotel Chelsea” on it and that the coffee comes to the table in a silver coffee pot. There’s something comforting to me about being surrounded by people who are in transition. Here for just a little time, but here in the same place as me. I love to feel like a “valued guest.”
In the last year I’ve been an even more frequent hotel guest and I’ve been thinking about the films that use hotels as both a setting and storytelling device. There’s something about that temporary space that’s both a home and a business, where the people there today might not be there tomorrow. I chose six of my favorites and broke them into two categories: Service and Transition, two of the most special things about hotels. If you need a 2 hour vacation, put on a robe, check into one of these films, and eat your next meal off a silver tray in your bed.
Service
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Obviously!!! This is a story of loving something so wholly built on the seemingly tedious attention to detail that makes it worth loving. It’s a pretty transparent comparison to Anderson’s work, but I like that about it. The film takes place mostly in flashback, starting when Zero (Tony Revolori), a refugee who has lost his family, first learned to be a Lobby Boy from the hotel’s concierge Monsieur Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes). Gustave lives and breathes guest services & love of the institution; there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for the hotel. Zero, in present day, remarks on the mineral baths he’s soaking in next to Jude Law: “Too decadent for current taste” he calls them, while both admiring what was and lamenting what is. This will make you long for a place you’ve never been and a time you can’t get back to.
Pretty Woman
I, sort of famously, am unlearning my dislike of Julia Roberts. My mother is disturbed by her overall thing and therefore I grew up feeling similarly. That said, I have always liked Pretty Woman. Tale as old as time: hooker falls in love with kind, rich man and with the help of a butler, learns to fit into his life. It’s not a feminist paradise really, but that’s more than okay with me when I find this playing on cable. Similar to my next pick, there’s a level of detachment from the themes that would make for a more complex drama (class, ethics of prostitution) but that makes it extremely of the time. The hotel suite in this is also perfectly of the moment, it’s like if you asked someone to conjure the essence of 1980s luxury into one place.
Maid in Manhattan
Ralph Fiennes found in hotel, again! This time playing a candidate for Senate & hotel guest who pines after an accidentally undercover hotel housekeeper: JLo. He mistakes her for a socialite & hotel guest and quickly falls for her, as it goes in the movies. She spends the film trying to hide her real job from him and I’m sure you can all guess how it ends. I love the behind the scenes look at the hotel that I believe is supposed to be Plaza-esque. The housekeeping quarters are inhabited by a cleaning crew that’s half family, half fairy godmother. This film edges toward class consciousness a few times but it fails to really go for it in a way that would be impossible today. It’s not a great movie in the way I usually mean but it’s a great movie in an entirely different way: where a Cinderella story stars Jennifer Lopez. This movie made $159,000,000 at the box office; a different America.
Transition
The Florida Project
Incredibly large vibe shift from the previous recs, but nonetheless important to the hotel film genre. Transience is one of the key themes of this film so setting it in a motel in Florida makes perfect sense. As we watch the day to day life of a little girl living in the motel with her mother who is just scraping by, the audience sees the horrors of the world that children don’t. She plays with the other kids coming in and out of the residence, eats ice cream, and runs around the outskirts of Orlando none the wiser to the tragedy going on around her. I’ve always liked Sean Baker (hot and talented), but this is the film that really moved him up in my book. His new film, Anora, is my most anticipated of this coming season. Baker’s work frequently does explore the depths of what is missing in films like Maid in Manhattan and Pretty Woman: uncomfortable looks at sex work and class. This really doesn’t fit in with my suggestion of curling up in a robe and a big down comforter… it’s more like sit down in your living room, enjoy Willem Dafoe at his best and life at its worst!
Lost in Translation
If you are in your 20s or 30s and single (or not, I’m not the boss of you), you need to live out a Lost in Translation situation at least once in your life. When we go on vacation, we get a temporary space to reinvent ourselves if we want to and the adoration that you can receive from a person who knows nothing about you is a pretty harmless high. Sofia Coppola has said that this film was written to work through some of the alienation she felt in her marriage to Spike Jones; the loneliness and aimlessness depicted through the relationships in this film are so strong you feel glad she got out. All in all, a chic hotel story about a short-lived age gap relationship… kind of the me pinnacle.
The Graduate
From one affair in a hotel to another. Although much of The Graduate takes place in beautiful Pasadena homes and at Berkeley, the nights Ben & Mrs. Robinson meet in the Taft hotel are what set up the entire story. Leaving a fake name at the front desk, drinking and smoking in the bar, trying to keep a low profile, this is what Airbnb tried to take from us! This is kind of one of the movies of all time so it’s hard for me to write anything short about it. It has a perfect soundtrack, is quintessentially Californian, and employs gorgeous cinematography (especially for a comedy). If you’ve never seen this, start here.
What I’m Watching This Week
I’m on my annual Summer holiday to see both of my parents. My dad has a house in the woods on a lake where we spend the entire day outside and then come in to watch TV after dinner and a game of cards. When he picked me up from the tiny airport here, he asked me if I’ve seen American Psycho. I said yes, then was shocked to find out he hadn’t. My dad will almost never say what he wants; he’ll just mention something a few times and everyone else is supposed to get with the program. Luckily, I’ve learned that over the last 20 something years of my life so we sat down a day later and watched it on Netflix. His review? “An interesting look at the 80s.”
I’ll go see Blink Twice when I fly down to my mom’s house this week. Really looking forward to that one.
It’s been a while since I’ve written so the last one is catch up: I saw Trap in a theater with my friends while I was still in New York and it was so fun to watch in a room full of people who both respect the work but can laugh at it anyway. Not one single rational decision is made in the entire runtime of the film but the subsequent “Trap Queens” group chat is still lighting up every few days with a good related tweet. Not even going to get into the Hartnett of it all.
Wait you're in New York can we be friends?
also now i need to rewatch lost in translation