2.5/5 stars
The Maid starts out as just another tawdry tale of a naive young housemaid tormented by vague supernatural forces in a ridiculously lavish mansion. But Lee Thongkham’s film turns into an audaciously violent revenge slasher of which even the subversive filmmaker Sion Sono might be proud.
Only the most dedicated of film-goers will get to appreciate this Thai movie’s gratuitous excesses, since its painfully uninspired opening act will put off more viewers than it legitimately frightens.
Baby-faced Ploy Sornarin plays Joy, the eponymous new hire of laughably wealthy couple Uma (Savika Chaiyadej) and Nirach (Theerapat Sajakul). Despite their cold indifference to their employees, they enjoy the fierce loyalty of the household staff, none of whom is willing to discuss the departure of Joy’s predecessor, Ploy (Kannaporn Puangtong).
Only the couple’s sickly daughter Nid (Keetapat Pongrue) is at all welcoming, but before she and Joy have time to strike up a meaningful bond, the latter is tormented by visions of a spooky maid, as well as a bizarre ghost-monkey, in the shadowy hallways of the mansion.
This tired retread of every notable Gothic romance and upstairs/downstairs drama, from The Innocents to , albeit without the atmosphere or tension, eventually gives way to a more intriguing, if no less derivative, story.
Lifting themes and entire sequences from Park Chan-wook’s and, of all things, American Psycho, Lee parlays those early unsuccessful scares into an erotically charged love triangle, punctuated by extreme and bloody violence.
Piyaluk Tuntisrisakul’s screenplay is clumsy, and the director’s slow-burn approach does the film no favours. Conversely, Ploy pitches her performance perfectly, unravelling quite spectacularly from vaguely irritating to deliriously unhinged as the story’s central mystery is finally revealed.
That leaves us only to ask: whither the ghost-monkey? So prominent and sinister in the film’s opening moments, its baffling presence is ultimately left unexplained.
The Maid is streaming on Netflix.
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