The Chambermaid

The Chambermaid is just okay. But it often seems poorer than it is because of how easy it is to compare this movie to so many other projects, many of which are genuinely great. The Chambermaid is not even close to great.

In the early 1900’s Anka leaves her small Slovak village to become a maid for a wealthy family in Prague. Anka’s main charge is the similarly aged Resi, the rich and spoiled daughter. On their first meeting, Resi accuses Anka of theft and forces her to strip naked. Some time passes. Resi and Anka share a tender moment where they dance together. Resi gets married to a man she despises. But by now, Resi and Anka are in love. For the two women, the outbreak of World War 1 offers freedom to them, as it means Resi’s husband is away and will hopefully die. But I mean, this is World War 1-era Europe so despite Anka’s hopes and positive outlook, life’s hard for the women and literally everyone else.

I did not enjoy the first half of The Chambermaid. It felt cliche and without any sort of subtly. And as mentioned, this film does nothing new. The focus on the upstairs/downstairs divide and life of servants in the early 1900’s reminded me of Downton Abbey, and many other similar projects. And while The Chambermaid doesn’t fail at what it wants to do with these scenes, it’s not exactly a standout work with this theme either. And as for characters, it takes until the outbreak of war for them to be interesting. Resi and Anka’s early relationship is abrupt and one of the weaker elements of the script. There were some vibes of The Handmaiden, but the film doesn’t seem interested in exploring power dynamics between two lesbians of different classes. Shame.

The film does pick up in the second half. It takes an hour of screentime or, several years within the story for these characters to develop complex relationships and personalities. But we do get there! And the movie gets better. The fact that Resi objectively sucks actually really works here. It makes for some good conflict and adds and edge to this fairly underwritten romance. Anka continues to be a bland character, but it’s at least interesting to see her devotion to Resi. And Resi’s one positive trait is that she does genuinely love Anka and is basically awful to everyone execpt Anka.

On a technical level, the film meets expectations but never exceeds them. This is a movie that will depict a character being sad by having them look out a window on a rainy day. None of this is breaking new ground. But still, there are some nice shots in the film. And the smaller technical elements come together to make this a believable portrait of the 1910’s. Other elements like sound and editing are also fine enough that I have no complaints, but not good enough for me to celebrate either.

The Chambermaid is far from the first film made about the lead up to World War 1. It’s admittedly one of much fewer films with that time period that focus on lesbianism. But even with that, the film feels too standard to stand out. This is an overall middling movie. It’s competent, polished and had enough budget to tell its story. But the story it tells isn’t anything remotely new.

Overall rating: 5.7/10

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