The Chambermaid movie review & film summary (2019)

Later, the audience learns more about Eve. She works hard to provide for her four-year-old boy back home and enrolls in the hotel’s equivalent of GED classes so she can move up. At the cafeteria, she only takes a cheap snack as a way to bring home more money before spending it. There are subtle ways in which her job grinds on her self-worth, like when a supervisor scolds her and reminds Eve that she’s not to be seen by guests or to spend too much time in guest areas, like an innocuous elevator bank. Some of her co-workers have their own agendas, and they try to prey on Eve’s kindness for extra help or money. For the most part, guests treat her as if she’s invisible, except for one privileged Argentine new mom who relies on her to watch her baby so she can shower. Even when it seems that someone can see Eve as a person, something happens to remind the audience just how isolated our main character remains. 

Avilés’ feature debut offers a snapshot of the under-appreciated and undervalued worker: the camera watches Eve closely with close-ups or medium shots, giving the audience a sense of Eve’s growing frustration with her environment. We can see her eyes fall every time she’s told to wait for a red dress she found that a guest left behind. We also see her steal away precious moments of privacy just to eat, call her son, relax or flirt. “The Chambermaid” doesn’t gloss over the laborious nature of her job—folding every bedsheet, dusting every surface, and so on—but it also captures how Eve invents ways to break the tedious routines. She’s curious about her guests, the books they bring and the things they throw out, making each room a different space for her to explore. Her duty-bound job may obscure her humanity to those around her, but the movie doesn’t lose sight of the qualities that make us more than cogs in a machine. 

Cartol gives an incredibly nuanced performance as Eve. It’s thrilling yet painful to watch her pent up so much quiet frustration in her eyes. Like waiting for an unsteady stack of Jenga tiles, you don’t know when her emotions are going to come crashing down, but they most assuredly will—they must. Yet, even in the movie’s quieter moments, Cartol’s performance is just as effective. Her character is shy, and we see her struggle to navigate the social awkwardness of her co-workers trying to sell her their items or the rush of panic when she’s uncomfortable with a man’s attention. Cartol never has to spell out what’s Eve thinking about; her eyes tell us so much.