Fantastic Fest 2010

Slick, polished and sexy, Im Sangsoo’s The Housemaid is the sort of grownup thriller we rarely see anymore. Directed with an icy precision befitting the coldly amoral family at its center, The Housemaid presents a tableaux of lust, boredom, and not particularly subtle manipulation. And if its reception at Cannes is any indicator, it has touched a nerve.

A remake of the 1960 classic, The Housemaid revolves around Lee Euny, a lower class, sweetly naive divorcee who begins the film working in the kitchen of a cheap restaurant and sharing a tiny apartment with her only friend. When the opportunity arises to become the housemaid for the enormously wealthy Hoon family she pounces on it. The Hoons are outwardly perfect. But if you know anything at all about outwardly perfect families you can guess that there’s something dark beneath the surface, in this case the erotic drives and compulsions of Mr. Hoon. Despite his smooth manners Hoon has the sense of silver-spoon entitlement that comes from having been raised in extreme wealth, and a corresponding lack of morality. It doesn’t take him long to become aware of Lee’s tender charms and one night, when his pregnant wife is unreceptive to a particularly harsh sexual demand he makes his way to her bed. None of this can possibly end well as Mr. Hoon soon finds that the women have sharp teeth too.

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