Movie Review: The Chambermaid

The Chambermaid **** / *****

Directed by: Lila Avilés.

Written by: Lila Avilés and Juan Carlos Márquez.

Starring: Gabriela Cartol (Eve), Teresa Sánchez (Minitoy).

 

The entirety of Lila Aviles’ debut film, The Chambermaid, takes place inside a luxury hotel in Mexico – and focuses on the title character Eve. She works long hours on the 21^st floor – cleaning the rooms of the rich guests, while trying to stay out of their site, as she is directed to do by her bosses. She is 24 years old, has a 4-year-old son, who she talks to on the phone sometimes, but we never see. The film always cuts away before Eve leaves for the day, and then places us back at the beginning of her next day.

 

Eve is a quiet, dedicated worker. She does her job well – and doesn’t complain. We often watch her as she goes about that job – and Aviles camera doesn’t cut away after a few seconds. We see has she washes and folds, scrubs and cleans. We watch as most of the guests simply look right through her, and treat her with little respect as they demand things from her. Her fellow co-workers seem nice – but essentially they know how quiet and easy-going she is, and taken advantage of that. In her, they seen what they can get from her. Even the one guest who is nice to her, is rather thoughtless in the way she deals with Eve – she is very nice, and says lots of wonderful things – but doesn’t think of her when she’s out of the room.

 

Slowly, we get to know Eve – through her actions more than her words, since she doesn’t say much. We see her as she asks, time and again, with hope in her voice about a red dress from lost and found which will become hers shortly – it’s a mixture of hope and embarrassment in her voice. Or how she asks about a promotion – to the newly opened 42^nd Floor – which she is assured is all but hers. Or when she attends GED classes, in the hopes of bettering herself – perhaps to move out of the hotel at some point. It’s a remarkable performance by Gabriela Cartol – because it’s so subtle, so measured, so quiet – and yet you know all you need to know.

 

The film would make an interesting double bill with Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma from last year. That film was about a maid for a middle-class family – who perhaps because it was based on Cuaron’s own, was largely sympathetic to them, while acknowledging their limitations. She was a member of the family – but not quite, always alone with her own thoughts. Here, Eve doesn’t even have that. It is about those workers that to most people are invisible, but who run everything. It is about the slow, steady process of them being ground down. By the time you get to the great final shot, you see Eve with complete clarity – and it breaks your heart.