The Maid

Last night I went to see a South American movie, The Maid, which was a semi-autobiographical film about the life of a service worker in a wealthy family. This woman had devoted her entire life to caring for the family, and, at age 41, had nothing of her own--no friends, no real belongings, no place to go on her one day off. She was being eaten alive by the needs of this family, who were, though they seemed nice and caring, actually, as another servant put it, "ingrates."
The maid had actually begun to lose her mind, and much of the film records her struggle to regain some semblance of sanity and carve out some kind of life for herself. It was another young woman, brought in to care for the house and family while the other maid recovered from her collapse, as much mental as physical, who brought the original maid back to life, making her see that she needed to find her own way. At the end of the film, she was trying, in a small and rather pathetic manner, to do that. It was a funny, dramatic, and sad film.