I’ve lived in West Hollywood for years and the Holloway Motel sat just a few steps from me. Walking by it every day, I grew accustomed to seeing an elderly man presiding over his second floor balcony. With a little chihuahua, Sam, by his side, a laptop perched precariously on the balustrade, he served as a fixture, a one man neighborhood watch in a sense. Over time, the motel seemed more and more like a residence the locals would refer to as that “cracked out place” and the gentleman easily dismissed as that “crazy person”. My parents, however, raised me to appreciate that every person has a story and in this case, we have a remarkable one. First time feature filmmakers, Nicholas Freeman and Ramiel Petros have structured The Last Guest Of The Holloway Motel like an onion, peeling back layer upon layer of their subject and raising the emotional stakes in the process.
Tony Powell, the late 70s man in question, managed the motel for decades until it recently closed. It will soon reopen as temporary housing for the city’s unhoused population, forcing Tony and his dog to find a new home. It jolted me to discover, however, that the story of a motel manager who loses his job and home, runs way deeper than I could ever have expected. I never would have guessed he once had a career in the 1970s as a professional soccer player in the U.K. and U.S. and that he abandoned his family for decades in order to live as a gay man. The surprises don’t stop there, with reveals popping up all of the way through the end credits.
Born in 1947, Powell grew up during a time when not only did gay men mostly remain closeted, but they risked imprisonment or worse if charged with “gross indecency”. Things changed somewhat when the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 came into effect in England and Wales. Shockingly, such reforms didn’t occur in Scotland and Northern Ireland until 1982. In this context, Powell sought cover by marrying a woman, but moved to California in 1981 to play for the San Jose Earthquakes and the Seattle Sounders. This also gave him more freedom to be himself.
A very reserved man, Tony takes a while to open up, his but it’s that reticence which draws us in as viewers. We get a fascinating peek into the psyche of a man with his walls way up, perhaps a result of the societal conditioning he experienced. Eventually, we get to know him, his friends and family, and his relationship with a former boyfriend. Mostly, however, we witness his current health struggles, his dependence on younger friends who know very little about his past, and his feeling that the best parts of his life went by too fast. It all adds up to something tremendously touching and heartbreaking. The filmmakers enhance the mood with a page-turning, cinéma-vérité sense of story coupled with stylistic flourishes such as a shot of Powell staring down the camera as naked athletes enter a locker room all around him.
In a world filled with documentaries in which its subjects overshare, The Last Guest Of The Holloway Motel finds immeasurable strength by forcing us to read between the lines. As such, we grow to appreciate Powell’s life on his terms, not ours. I know I’ll be regarding the residents of the new transitional housing development knowing each of them have a story to tell. That’s the power of this fantastic film.
By Glenn Gaylord, Senior Film Critic
The Last Guest Of The Holloway Motel is now playing in select theaters and available on VOD via Apple TV, Fandango and Amazon Prime Video. For more details head to thelastguestdoc.com.
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