The Palace premiered this week at the Venice Film Festival, where Polanski’s last film, An Officer and A Spy, opened to cautiously positive reviews in 2019, ultimately winning him the Silver Lion for Best Director. For better or worse, The Palace just isn’t good: a film that wears its bad taste like a mink coat while offering little in terms of fun, less still in terms of style. Somewhere in the middle Polanski drops a little wink to Chinatown but, of course, there are no allusions to what took place in Jack Nicholson’s house three years after that film’s release.