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Poster for The Maid

The Maid

She's almost part of the family.

2009 · 1h 37m · NOT RATED Comedy, Drama
Directed by Sebastián Silva

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Overview

Raquel has been the live-in housekeeper for a kind, reasonably wealthy family for half her life, and the joyless repetition of the job has begun to take its toll. Increasingly dependent on painkillers, Raquel resorts to pranks and childish avoidance to antagonize the family’s college-age daughter and a procession of new servants, all in the hopes of protecting her precarious power within the home. Her antics successfully push everyone away, until new maid Lucy actually pushes back.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
94%
Tomatometer
Fresh

As played by Catalina Saavedra, she's a guarded, ruthless, but ultimately poignant character, and writer-director Sebastian Silva studies the levers of power inside the little household as if it were the Politburo.

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader
Fresh

Deadpan, handheld technique allows director Sebastian Silva to mine mundane situations for subtle hazard but also to take his story in unexpected directions, initial reticence preserving the potential for surprise.

Ben Walters, Time Out
Fresh

As unlikable -- and unstable -- as the character is, Saavedra finds a way for the audience to care about Raquel deeply and even to root for her to come out on top with her childish evil plots.

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star
Fresh

Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes unsettling, and always engrossing, The Maid is a domestic drama about the gulf that exists at impossibly close quarters between the worlds of upstairs and downstairs, the worlds of employer and household servant,

Jonathan F. Richards, Film.com
Rotten

Fun for a while but increasingly tedious...

Tom Keogh, Seattle Times

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