Published: Friday, December 4, 2009
Watching ‘The Maid' lose it funny, unpredictable
Why does watching the new Chilean film “The Maid” provoke such an unusual combination of amusement and anxiety? Maybe because director Sebastian Silva and his lead actress, Catalina Saavedra, are completely poker-faced about their intentions.
We are in an upper-middle-class home in Santiago, Chile, where Raquel (Saavedra) works as the live-in maid to the Valdez family. She's been with the family 20 years and turns 41 as the film begins. She might be cracking.
Suffering from mysterious fainting spells and increasingly cranky, Raquel clearly needs assistance. But when Mrs. Valdez (Claudia Celedon) tries to hire some part-time kitchen help, Raquel goes out of her way to sabotage the intruders.
For much of the film, we study the clues and wonder when something awful is going to happen. Raquel dotes on an adolescent Valdez son, but is weirdly hostile to his older sister. And the tricks she plays on the other maids border on the sadistic.
But then comes the new maid, Lucy (strapping, bespectacled Mariana Loyola), whose cheerful approach to life is almost as bizarre as Raquel's sourpuss attitude. The difference between these two personalities is what takes the film into the pleasurable surprises of its final third.
At that point, I no longer had any idea what kind of movie this was. But I was happy to watch something that was not only unpredictable, but actually messing with my expectations about what was coming.
Silva shoots the film in a handheld, grungy style that makes you feel you're right in the middle of this off-kilter domestic comedy. Apparently he based the story on his own upbringing, which accounts for the telling details and how they reveal character: Mr. Valdez and his hobby of making model ships (a classic father's excuse for avoiding his family), for instance, says a lot about the family dynamic.
Although Saavedra's dowdy performance communicates a lot, we are not told why Raquel is the way she is. But this is just right: We can infer that her hostility comes from the years of servitude or perhaps from her own self-imposed oddness.
“The Maid” itself looks dowdy, too. Looks can be deceiving, as this movie proves almost every minute it's onscreen.
“The Maid”
In an upper-middle-class home in Chile, a longtime live-in maid (Catalina Saavedra) seems to be cracking up — a spectacle that is both amusing and anxiety-provoking. That's because director Sebastian Silva and his lead actress are completely poker-faced about their intentions in this unpredictable film, which succeeds despite its dowdy look. In Spanish, with English subtitles.
Rated: Not rated; probably R for nudity, subject matter
Showing: Seven Gables
We are in an upper-middle-class home in Santiago, Chile, where Raquel (Saavedra) works as the live-in maid to the Valdez family. She's been with the family 20 years and turns 41 as the film begins. She might be cracking.
Suffering from mysterious fainting spells and increasingly cranky, Raquel clearly needs assistance. But when Mrs. Valdez (Claudia Celedon) tries to hire some part-time kitchen help, Raquel goes out of her way to sabotage the intruders.
For much of the film, we study the clues and wonder when something awful is going to happen. Raquel dotes on an adolescent Valdez son, but is weirdly hostile to his older sister. And the tricks she plays on the other maids border on the sadistic.
But then comes the new maid, Lucy (strapping, bespectacled Mariana Loyola), whose cheerful approach to life is almost as bizarre as Raquel's sourpuss attitude. The difference between these two personalities is what takes the film into the pleasurable surprises of its final third.
At that point, I no longer had any idea what kind of movie this was. But I was happy to watch something that was not only unpredictable, but actually messing with my expectations about what was coming.
Silva shoots the film in a handheld, grungy style that makes you feel you're right in the middle of this off-kilter domestic comedy. Apparently he based the story on his own upbringing, which accounts for the telling details and how they reveal character: Mr. Valdez and his hobby of making model ships (a classic father's excuse for avoiding his family), for instance, says a lot about the family dynamic.
Although Saavedra's dowdy performance communicates a lot, we are not told why Raquel is the way she is. But this is just right: We can infer that her hostility comes from the years of servitude or perhaps from her own self-imposed oddness.
“The Maid” itself looks dowdy, too. Looks can be deceiving, as this movie proves almost every minute it's onscreen.
“The Maid”
In an upper-middle-class home in Chile, a longtime live-in maid (Catalina Saavedra) seems to be cracking up — a spectacle that is both amusing and anxiety-provoking. That's because director Sebastian Silva and his lead actress are completely poker-faced about their intentions in this unpredictable film, which succeeds despite its dowdy look. In Spanish, with English subtitles.
Rated: Not rated; probably R for nudity, subject matter
Showing: Seven Gables
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• Movies“The Maid”
In an upper-middle-class home in Chile, a longtime live-in maid (Catalina Saavedra) seems to be cracking up — a spectacle that is both amusing and anxiety-provoking. That’s because director Sebastian Silva and his lead actress are completely poker-faced about their intentions in this unpredictable film, which succeeds despite its dowdy look. In Spanish, with English subtitles.
Rated: Not rated; probably R for nudity, subject matter
Showing: Seven Gables
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