The Palace

2023

Action / Comedy / Drama

5
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 62% · 21 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 62% · 50 ratings
IMDb Rating 5.5/10 10 4464 4.5K

hotel new year's eve switzerland penguin

Plot summary

A comedy set on New Year’s Eve 1999 in a luxurious hotel in the Swiss Alps where the lives of various guests and those who work for them intersect.

Director

Roman Polanski Photo
Roman Polanski

Top cast

Mickey Rourke Photo
Mickey Rourke as Bill Crush
Wilfried Hochholdinger Photo
Wilfried Hochholdinger as Magnolia Host
John Cleese Photo
John Cleese as Arthur William Dallas III
Milan Peschel Photo
Milan Peschel as Caspar Tell
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay 2160p.WEB
928.16 MB
1280*690
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us   it   de  
24 fps
1 hr 40 min
Seeds 5
1.86 GB
1920*1036
English 5.1
NR
Subtitles us   it   de  
24 fps
1 hr 40 min
Seeds 14
4.57 GB
3840*2160
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
N/A
Seeds ...

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by ma-cortes 5 / 10

An uneven and disjointed crazy comedy set entirely in a hotel by the very veteran Roman Polanski.

12 hours before the dreaded 2.000 effect, a luxurious mountain resort in Gstaad (one of the most expensive locations in the world and where Polanski usually lives) prepares to dazzle its eccentric guests with a luxurious New Year's Eve party at the end of 1999. A dying multimillionaire, a rich swindler, an allegedly marquise (Fanny Ardant), a former Italian porn actor, a rich 90-year-old tycoon named Arthur William Dallas III (John Cleese) recently married to a very young and chubby 20-year-old girl called Magnolia (Bronwyn James) , a very busy doctor (Joaquin de Almeida) are some of the characters that make up this solemn 'farewell to the millennium'.A dramedy set on New Year's Eve 1999 in a luxurious Swiss hotel where the lives of hotel workers and various guests get intertwined. A nutty comedy with a multitude of incidents between the varied fauna of residents in a luxury hotel. Polanski shoots, at 90 years old, this uneven satire full of grotesque and outlandish characters tinged with a great political incorrectness that attacks everything and everyone. Oliver Masucci (The Swarm, Day Shift), Fanny Ardant (The Woman Next Door, The Young Lovers), Luca Barbareschi (Cannibal Holocaust) who produced as well, Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler), a very old and wrinkled Sydne Rome who long time ago worked with Polanski in What ? (1972), are some of the stars who bring to life the members of this unique Hotel. In the Palace (2023) stands out the luxurious and colorful cinematography by Pawel Edelman set on location in Palace Hotel, Gstaad, Switzerland, (main location) and Gstaad, Kanton Bern, Switzerland. As well as the sensitive and lively musical score by Alexandre Desplat.The motion picture was co-written , produced and unevenly directed by the Polish Roman Polanski, failing both with international critics and at the box office . Director Roman Polanski owns a house near the shooting location in Gstaad, Switzerland, where he lives with his wife Emmanuelle Seigner (who usually plays his films) and children most of the time. The film received some nominations and awards, such as: Polish Film Awards Pawel Edelman 2024 Nominee Eagle Best Cinematography: Pawel Edelman (cinematographer) and Prize Berenice 2024 Winner Jury Prize Best Makeup in Film: Diego Prestopino. This The Palace (2023) marks as a reunion between Roman Polanski and Jerzy Skolimowski (who wrote and produced) 60 years after their first script collaboration in Knife in the Water (1962), which marked as Polanski's debut as a filmmaker. Polanski's cinematic trajectory is hard , problematic and full of incidents. In 1968, Polanski went to Hollywood, where he made the psychological thriller, Rosemary's Baby (1968). However, after the brutal murder of his wife, Sharon Tate, by the Manson Family in 1969, the director decided to return to Europe. In 1974, he again made a US release - it was Chinatown (1974) . It seemed the beginning of a promising Hollywood career, but after his conviction for the sodomy of a 13-year old girl, Polanski fled from the USA to avoid prison. After Tess (1979), which was awarded several Oscars and Cesars, his works in 1980s and 1990s became intermittent and rarely approached the caliber of his earlier films. In 1992 made Bitter Moon , but it doesn't succeed as the erotic drama it's intented to be and including some ludicrous lines from what must be Polanski's worst movie . His career is full of hits and some flops , his biggest successes were Rosemary's Baby , Chinatown, The pianist , Oliver Twist , Frantic, Dance of vampires , among others . His big megahit was The Pianist (2002) that Polanski came back to full form. For that movie, he won nearly all the most important film awards, including the Oscar for Best Director, Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or, the BAFTA and Cesar Award. And The Ghost Writer (2010) in which Polanski was arrested September 2009 in Switzerland, post-production was never put on hold , he then oversaw every step of the film and made all of the artistic decisions. He finished editing the movie while in a Swiss prison and in December 2009, Roman was released on bail but placed under house arrest . And later Polanski made Carnage (2011) , Venus in furs (2013), D'après une histoire vraie or Based on a True Story (2017), and J'accuse (2019) . The Palace rating is 5.5/10 . Only for Roman Polanski enthusiasts and completists.
Reviewed by italikagio 4 / 10

A mediocre comedy from an extraordinary director Polanski

If it wasn't for Polanski directing the film the rate would be even lower.The film fails to deliver the satiric rapresentation of the modern society, the script is messy, direction is good but not extraordinary. The photography was good, soundtrack not, acting was sufficient from all actors. The film is bittersweet and sometimes annoying. I think some of the characters could have been left put from the entire film. As i said before, the only good thing is direction and some acting. The soundtrack was unrelevant, the script had problems and gaps.It was hard to believe that was a Polanski's film. To summarise, you can watch it but without expectations.
Reviewed by HuntinPeck80 3 / 10

Like watching a 100 minute (bad) episode of Eurotrash

How do you remember New Year's Eve 1999? I remember a tremendous fireworks display in London, pushing through crowds of revellers, and getting kissed by some strange woman. The world didn't end, except insofar as the machines took over our lives. We all gradually disappeared into the vortex of virtual space. Oh well, whayyagonnado?I find much of Polanski's oeuvre intriguing, weirdly funny, frightful, dramatic, even beautiful at times. It has to be admitted, he has a peculiar sense of humour. Cul-de-Sac; The Fearless Vampire Killers; What?; Pirates: these films are weird comedies all. They can raise a smile but rarely provoke actual laughter. Carnage does succeed in tickling one's ribs, but Polanski didn't write that one. The Palace has to be bracketed with those other old peculiars.This film reunited Polanski with his collaborator from 1962's breakthrough, Knife in the Water, screenwriter Jerzy Skolimowski. Knife has three people stuck on a boat. The Palace has a crowd of grotesques in a Swiss hotel, up in the mountains. It's Y2K party time and a disciplined hotel staff must contend with a roving penguin, an incontinent little dog (one of those breeds that looks more like a rat), a squabble of shrieking Russian bimbos, a stretch of old mutton sporting some of the worst facelifts imaginable (think Jack Nicholson in Batman), shady businessmen, a gazillionnaire with his gold-digging BBW, a faded Italian stallion, and well, other various ones, twos and threes. All we need is the right kind of catalyst for a wild farce, upstairs downstairs, the vulgar rich and the exasperated poor.Do we get such a farce? No, not really.The Palace is much like the turn of the millennium was, a bit of a party but not really that big of a deal. The cast do as well as they can, and credit to the actors for playing such bizarre personages. John Cleese earns one laugh for his comical facial expression. The problem is that there isn't enough story to make this truly memorable. It doesn't have the whimsical eccentricity of The Grand Budapest Hotel. The grotesquerie is just, well, gross, most of the time. At other times, dare I say, a bit boring? But the biggest problem, I suppose, is comprehending the motives of Skolimowski & Polanski for making The Palace. Why did they want to?As I say, it reminded me of Eurotrash, the TV series, obliquely, because of the emphasis on trashy people, but at least we had fun watching that vulgar show, back then...(sound of harp glissandi) all those years ago...
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