The Maid aka La Nana, is a Chilean domestic drama about a lonely woman trying to hold onto her household position after more than 20 years of service to an upper middle class family in Chile. Kids, teenagers and even parents need looking after... especially in this day and age when work and play don't seem to leave much time for chores. The housework and even the daycare is now considered to be part of a full-time maid's job. Their job title may not extend beyond a clean kitchen and tidy house, but they become a part of the family - detached, yet connected - like a unwanted guest.
This is where Raquel (Saavedra) finds herself, caught between the roles of maid and family member. Intimate in the sense that she takes out the dirty laundry, is a stash for family secrets and holds the key to their home. It's a position of trust with serious privacy privileges... from staying in a room in the home to bringing a tray into the host's bedroom in the morning, she works day and even night trying to make a living and establishing her place.
However, Raquel's headaches, age and increasing pressure from a demanding family are starting to take their toll. Her employer is trying to alleviate Raquel's workload by getting another helper, but Raquel will have none of it... playing mind games and bullying her competitors out of the front door. The Maid is a drama, but it's more than that - moving into the domain of psychological thriller and toying with some fairly sinister motives.
Catalina Saavedra is Raquel and dominates The Maid with a stirring performance. One that shows more than tells, creating a complex character in a bittersweet arrangement... moving from detestable to likable and absorbing every emotion in the process. Saavedra's performance is one of the main reasons to see The Maid and it wouldn't be surprising to see her nominated for an Oscar. In fact, the entire ensemble deliver on performance given their screen time, facilitating the harassment, the claustrophobia and the eye-opening perspective of Raquel in something akin to Robin Williams in One Hour Photo.
Writer-director, Sebastian Silva, brings his vision to life with a docudrama feel to the cinematography and an easy swagger to the dialogue in this bittersweet story. It's not for everyone, most subtitled films rarely are, and conveys the plight of the maid from several angles. Silva cleverly recycles the drama by bringing new competition into the house, changing the atmosphere and presenting a different work ethic with each new maid.
Watching housework, toil and devious scheming is taxing and this makes the film is fairly stressful, especially for those with a full-time maid of their own. The Maid forces viewers to see the domestic situation from an intimate outsider's perspective, instead of just blissfully ignoring all the inside knowledge that comes with the territory. It's quite frightening to see just how ingrained a relative stranger can become in a home and interesting to see how one copes with being there, but not truly being there.
The Maid cracks open a facet of life so often overlooked by film-makers and creates a thought-provoking, albeit haunting depiction of life for a busy, crowded and lonely soul. The reality drama factor is reminiscent of films like Rachel Getting Married and Silva keeps it tight with hand-held cameras allowing the title character into every little space of the home. There are moments when the film could have gone beserk, but Silva keeps the intensity up without losing the lid. This subtle "holding back" keeps things within the realm of reality, but leaves the door open for future low budget horror/thriller film productions.
The bottom line: Powerful.
