''The Maid'' ( es, La Nana) is a 2009

comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

film, directed by Sebastián Silva and co-written by Silva and Pedro Peirano. It has won numerous awards since its premiere at the 25th Annual Sundance Film Festival. The film has had much critical acclaim, particularly for Catalina Saavedra's award-winning performance as the lead character.

Plot synopsis

Raquel (Saavedra) has served as the

maid A maid, or housemaid or maidservant, is a female domestic worker. In the Victorian era domestic service was the second largest category of employment in England and Wales, after agricultural work. In developed Western nations, full-time maids ...

for the Valdes family for over 23 years. She treats her employers, Pilar (Celedón) and Edmundo (Goic) with the utmost loyalty and respect. She gets along well with their teenage son, Lucas (Agustín Silva) but clashes with their headstrong daughter, Camila (García-Huidobro). When Raquel begins to suffer dizzy spells, due to an excessive use of chlorine for household cleaning, Pilar decides to hire additional maids to assist Raquel in her daily chores. The fiercely territorial Raquel resents this and engages in a series of increasingly desperate attempts to drive away maid after maid, including the younger Lucy (Loyola), in order to maintain her position in the household.

Cast

* Catalina Saavedra as Raquel *

Claudia Celedón Claudia Irene Celedón Ureta (born 15 August 1966) is a Chilean television, film, and theater actress. She is the winner of an Altazor Award for best theater actress for her role in the play ''Mujer gallina'', and was awarded at the Cartagena Int ...

as Pilar * Alejandro Goic as Edmundo *

Mariana Loyola Mariana Francisca Loyola Ruz (Santiago, 2 August 1975) is a Chilean theater, film, and television actress. Loyola began to work regularly in the theater until in 2001 she was cast in the telenovela '' Amores de mercado''. That same year she ma ...

as Lucy * Agustín Silva as Lucas * Andrea García-Huidobro as Camila *

Anita Reeves Anita Reeves (24 June 1948 – 7 July 2016) was an Irish stage and film actress. Early life Born in South Dublin, Ireland, the youngest daughter of Jack Reeves and his wife, Kay. Reeves grew up on Sundrive Road in Dublin 12, where her father Ja ...

as Sonia *

Delfina Guzmán Delfina Guzmán Correa (born 7 April 1928) is a Chilean actress. She has appeared in more than 30 films and television shows since 1968. She starred in the 1968 Raúl Ruiz film '' Three Sad Tigers''. She is the daughter of Florencio Guzmán La ...

as The Grandmother * Luis Dubó como ''Eric'' * Gloria Canales as ''Lucy's mom'' * Luis Wigdorsky as ''Lucy's dad''

Reception

Critical reception

Critics have responded very positively to the film. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

the film has a 93% approval rating, based on 75 reviews, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Catalina Saavedra's devastating performance would be reason enough to see ''The Maid'' but Sebastian Silva's empathetic direction and finely tuned script only add to the movie's pleasing heft." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 82 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Film critic David Parkinson called it "an exceptional study of the emotional investment that domestics make in the families they serve. Saavedra is mesmerizing as she shifts from subservient to scheming." ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...

'' film critic

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

described the film as a "unpredictable, naturalistic gem."

Accolades

According to the

National Board of Review The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures is a non-profit organization of New York City area film enthusiasts. Its awards, which are announced in early December, are considered an early harbinger of the film awards season that culminat ...

, ''The Maid'' was one of 2009's five best Best Foreign-Language Films; also, it was nominated for the 67th Annual

Golden Globe Awards The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of t ...

consideration honoring 2009 achievements for the same category, and "AyAyAyAy" (the film's main theme song) was one of the 63 songs from eligible feature-length motion pictures contending for nominations in the Original Song category for the

82nd Academy Awards The 82nd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2009 and took place on March 7, 2010, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m ...

. Despite the film's great success, the film was not chosen as Chile's submission to the 82nd Academy Awards. Instead,

Miguel Littín Miguel Ernesto Littin Cucumides (born 9 August 1942) is a Chilean film director, screenwriter, film producer and novelist. He was born to a Palestinian father, Hernán Littin and a Greek mother, Cristina Cucumides. Career Miguel Littin dir ...

's ''

Dawson Isla 10 ''Dawson Isla 10'' is a 2009 Chilean drama film, written and directed by Miguel Littín, a Chilean film director. The screenplay is based on ''Isla 10'', a book by Sergio Bitar about his experiences as a political prisoner; "Isla 10" was the subs ...

'' was sent, but the film didn't make the short-list.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Maid Maids in films 2009 films Chilean independent films 2000s Spanish-language films Sundance Film Festival award winners Chilean comedy-drama films 2009 comedy-drama films 2009 independent films