Title: The Maid’s Room
Director: Michael Walker
Starring: Philip Ettinger, Paula Garces, Bill Camp, Annabella Sciorra, John Brodsky, Stefanie Brown, Herman Chavez, Bonnie Dennision, Remy Auberjonois
Running time: 94 minutes, Rated R, In theaters August 8th and on iTunes/VOD
Drina (Paula Garces of the Harold & Kumar trilogy) is a Colombian immigrant who lands a job as a live-in maid in the Hamptons. Her employers are the Crawford’s- Alcoholic wife (Annabella Sciorra) and her elitist husband (Bill Camp). Their son Brandon (Philip Ettinger) arrives home from college unexpectedly and Drina is forced to clean up his disgusting leftover food that attracts hordes of ants. Unbeknownst to Drina, Brandon has developed a voyeuristic obsession with her. One night after a drinking binge, Brandon arrives home and Drina witnesses him cleaning blood off of his car. She goes to the elder Crawford’s telling them she wants to go to the police and they humiliate her by first offering her bribes, and then telling her that nobody will believe her because the police will see she’s just an opportunistic immigrant wanting revenge on her employers who fired her; getting her deported. She still attempts to call the police and the Crawford’s show how far they’ll go to protect their family. Drina’s friends from Colombia come looking for her and make it harder for the rich and powerful to hide from their sins, causing the Crawford’s to turn on one another.
The Good: The plot of the film was actually funny and I don’t even think it was supposed to be.
The Bad: Ants! Ants! Ants! Dude, seriously what the hell is with all the friggin’ ants?! I’m not myrmecophobic, but just the sight of ants makes me disgusted and angry. Is it symbolism for the white-man’s fear of all the immigr-ANTs coming into this country? Stop it. Enough already. The acting appeared more like an exercise and nobody seemed to be taking their scenes seriously. Paula Garces is being choked to death, but there’s no hands on her throat. Bill Camp’s hands kept moving around on her neck and it was like he forgot what he was doing and then remembered he was still supposed to be choking her when she kept gagging. It takes over 3 minutes for someone to die by choking; sell it is all I’m saying. The whole film was predictable, tedious, and oh what a shitty ending. I was expecting maybe the guilt and fear of what they did to Drina was going to cause a bit more anguish and make them go mad batshit on each other, but what a let down.
The Maid’s Room had a simple message – Brown people are everywhere and will cause the rich white devils to destroy themselves.
Total Rating: D
Reviewed by: JM Willis
