The director of the wild South Korean thriller, The President’s Last Bang, here takes on an identically titled remake of one of that country’s classic movies. Kim Ki-young’s 1960 thriller, The Housemaid, which was recently restored by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation, is the source material for Im Sang-soo’s modern take.
Although I haven’t seen the original, I’m told Im’s changes are primarily in the film’s power relationships. In Kim’s version the housemaid is a character who schemes to bring down a good marriage, and in Im’s new version the character is a naïve and passive woman who is ultimately exploited and cast aside by the rich and powerful family for whom she works.
Eun-yi (Jeon Do-yeon) is a poor, young, divorced woman who leaves an existence-level job in a noodle shop to work as a housemaid for an extremely wealthy couple and nanny for their precocious child. She soon becomes fodder for the husband’s insistent penis and the wife’s petty affronts. They abuse her because they can, as Im makes clear this is a story about the pernicious effects of class entitlement. Things come to a head when the wife discovers her husband’s infidelity and, with her mother-in-law’s malevolent assistance, punishes Eun-yi. Emotions go over the top by the end.
With provocative sexual scenes, The Housemaid is more an erotic thriller than a cat-and-mouse thriller. No one comes out of this looking terribly good, although Youn Yuh-jung as the observant senior housemaid lends some humor to the piece. (Her abbreviation for housemaids’ work is R.U.N.S.: revolting, ugly, nauseating, shameless.) Despite the film’s hot sex and backhanded comments, The Housemaid never builds up any steam. The plot is all on the surface and the operatically grand gestures that open and close the film seem out-of-place bookends for what is otherwise a humdrum plot. Expertly filmed to maximize striking imagery and deliciously performed, The Housemaid is nevertheless derelict in her duty to thrill. (Both versions of The Housemaid are playing at Fantastic Fest.)
The Housemaid (1960) screens Wednesday, Sept. 29 at 12:15pm at the Alamo South 1. The Housemaid (2010) screens immediately after at 3:10pm in the Alamo South Lamar 1.
This article appears in September 24 • 2010.
