Until recently, Latina domestics at the movies were only exciting if they looked like J-Lo and/or found favour with the One Per Cent. As shown by the success of Roma, things are changing.
This wry, delicately austere debut from Mexican theatre director Lila Avilés goes one step further. To quote a famous TV sitcom line: “I don’t speak maid.” With Avilés’s help, we’re taught a new language.
Where Roma’s maid is a paragon adored by her employers, The Chambermaid’s heroine, Eve (Gabriela Cartol; gob-smackingly subtle), is averagely flawed, never relaxes in front of the powerful and doesn’t get a thumbs-up from her “betters”. She doesn’t rescue anyone and she isn’t rescued. How refreshing.
As Eve cleans rooms in a fancy Mexico City hotel, Avilés makes bold decisions. We never see Eve’s home, we just hear about it via phone conversations with a childminder who, every night, puts Eve’s four-year-old son to bed.
The hotel’s oppressively sterile rooms and breezy guests loom over Eve. Avilés, you suspect, is a Kubrick fan. Via the most subtle of visual cues she makes us feel as if we’ve wondered into 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Shining.
Eve’s colleagues try to make her loosen up, which results in some laugh-out-loud moments. Then comes a devastating revelation: Eve, as it stands, can’t afford to pay the childminder. Even though she works every hour God sends, she is sliding into debt: she’s subsidising her millionaire bosses.
The Chambermaid captures the essence of Eve’s panic. You don’t pity her, you empathise with her, to the extent that when she finally escapes the confines of the hotel, your own lungs are thrown into a quandary. You realise you’ve been holding your breath. But is it really safe to exhale?
