Film Review — The Housemaid (2010)
★★★★☆ Classic melodrama reimagining flips the script and turns up the heat
A newly hired domestic servant engages in an affair with her wealthy employer, beginning a dangerous chain of events with deadly ramifications.
Less a remake and more of a reinterpretation, Im Sang-soo’s 2010 rendition of the psychosexual classic The Housemaid dials down the femme fatale aspect in favour of a scathing commentary on power, class and the role of women as a disposable by-product of both. It’s a modern take on an age-old problem.
Jeon Do-yeon stars as the kind-hearted but naive housemaid, a young woman presumably new to the staggering excess of the wealthy elite. Even without knowledge of the original story, it’s easy to see where this is going as soon as Lee Jung-jae enters the picture, his rising lust quickly resulting in sexual (mis)adventure, highly explicit scenes equal parts seedy and sensual.
These encounters propel the story, mutating the film into a tense conspiratorial thriller, the kind where the audience knows the protagonist is in trouble long before they do. The woman connected to Lee Jung-jae’s character plot and connive, a rabble of toxic femininity that, at times, feels more like something out of Mean Girls, just way less funny.
At no point do they ever hold the man accountable for his actions, punctuating the tragedy of South Asian culture as well as the wider role of men in a world long before the #MeToo movement.
The Housemaid is yet another example of exquisitely intricate South Korean cinema; a fascinating and engrossing tale of power and abuse, a melodrama that slowly twists as passionate warmth and anxious excitement give way to the scolding flames of a woman scorned.
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