The Chambermaid Lynn wants two things. It desperately wants to be Amelie. It also wants you to take it completely seriously. Those two wants are directly contradictory.
The movie follows the eponymous Lynn. Lynn works as a maid in a hotel. She has trouble connecting with people due to her social awkwardness and slightly off-kilter mentality. In her search for connection, Lynn begins hiding under beds in the rooms she cleans. As a result, she encounters a man who uses his hotel room to see a prostitute. Lynn then contacts the prostitute, Chiara. Chiara becomes the person Lynn develops the strongest connection to.
Plot-wise, The Chambermaid Lynn is rather week. Story is not the focus of this movie. As such, it just wanders around following Lynn in her bland life. Plot points are minimal as are aspects of conflict and resolution. There is a place for movies like this. However, the character the film focuses on needs to be a lot more interesting than Lynn was.
That’s the main problem with The Chambermaid Lynn. Lynn herself is too opaque and unknowable. She’s supposed to be quirky and shy but comes off as disaffected. Her divorce from the real world is depicted with her just not interacting with things and looking perpetually confused. It gives no insight into the character. This is all despite the fact that actress Vicki Krieps is very good at her job and is clearly game for anything. Sadly, this movie doesn’t give her enough to work with so the character doesn’t come to life. The Chambermaid Lynn does not show us how Lynn sees the world. Instead, it shows us Lynn seeing the world. That’s wildly uninteresting if we can’t get inside her head and see her perspective.
The relationship Lynn has with Chiara is the best part of the movie. This is one of those European movies that’s ahead of the curve about not giving a shit about sexuality or the gender of their protagonist’s lovers. As a result, that Chiara and Lynn are both women isn’t really brought up. For better or worse, there’s no actual discussion of queer identity or issues or whatnot in The Chambermaid Lynn. It’s just a movie featuring a female protagonist who sometimes has sex with a lady.
It’s actually a bit ambiguous as to whether Lynn is traditionally “queer,” as in feels physical attraction to Chiara. Their interactions are instead more based on Lynn’s starvation for any sort of human connection. The encounters between them are charmingly weird and intimate in a way that’s rarely actually sexual. Still, there is a sexual encounter or two between them and Lynn seems to get more pleasure from this than she did with her male lover.
The Chambermaid Lynn feels unnecessary as a movie. It’s not particularly entertaining nor is it a story that “needed” to be told. It has a base level of competence that stops me from giving it an overtly negative review but this movie is pretty bland. If it was willing to have fun and celebrate its unusual character like Amelie for instance, it would’ve been much better. However, in its determination to be taken so damn seriously as a movie, all joy and fun get lost. All that remains is a series of nicely-lit and well shot scenes that tell a story I can’t give one shit about.
Overall rating: 5.2/10
Other WLW films in similar genres
Relationships with sex workers
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