With “The Maid,” Chilean director Sebastian Silva has made a film that might touch on class differences, but is really a character study of Raquel (Catalina Saavedra), a live-in maid for the same family for more than 20 years. Raquel has no contact with her own family and has adopted this one as her own even though she really isn’t a family member. Nonetheless, she guards her territory as fiercely as a dog with a bone. Pilar (Claudia Celedon), the wife and mother of the family, decides that Raquel, who has just celebrated her 41st birthday, needs help doing the housework. This threatens Raquel and her fierce competition with the other maids draws out the worst in her. Then Pilar hires Lucy (Mariana Loyola), an enthusiastic and self-confident young woman who handles Raquel’s attempts to get her to leave differently. Lucy, who is vitally alive and Raquel’s polar opposite, brings energy and excitement into Raquel’s life and we gradually see her begin to change.
At only 95 minutes long, “The Maid” seems much longer. And maybe it’s a credit to Silva and his co-writer Pedro Peirano that I never knew what was going to happen next. But that also adds to the meandering quality of this movie. Catalina Saavedra is effective as the taciturn Raquel, whose identity is tied to the family she has served for so many years. Her Raquel is empty although there are glimpses that she might change. Even so, Raquel is not someone I would want in my house. Subtitles. 11/19/09
1 comment:
"The Maid" can be described as "a day in the life" of a middle aged and very boring and confused lady who seemed to be ready to go off the deep end at any minute but manages to hold it together until she meets Lucy, the maids helper to was able to straighten out Raquel and give some meaning to her otherwise pointless life. "Pointless" is a good description of this meandering movie.
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