The Chambermaid / La camarista, the debut feature film by Lila Avilés and Mexico’s Oscar candidate in the best international film competition, has been named as one of the year’s best by the New York Times, The Guardian and Variety.
The New York Times’ film critic A.O. Scott selected the Mexican film starring Gabriela Cartol along with other 24 titles, which also include the Brazilian documentary film The Edge of Democracy by Petra Costa, the Colombian epic drama Birds of Passage by Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego, and Sebastián Lelio’s Gloria Bell, the Chilean director’s own English-language remake of his 2013 hit.
The Guardian’s critic Peter Bradshaw selected the Mexican film for two of his personal ‘Braddies’ awards, for best directorial debut for Avilés, and for best cinematography by DP Carlos Rossini.
Variety’s chief film critic Peter Debruge selected the film in the number six spot of his favorite films of the year. “Following on the heels of art-house hit Roma, but produced for a fraction of the budget, Lila Avilés’ artful Spanish-language feature invites audiences to identify with a cleaning woman in a Mexico City hotel — a character who’s virtually invisible to the posh establishment’s well-to-do guests, but no less deserving of her own movie. With her hopes hitched to the prospect of a promotion, Eve (Gabriela Cartol) goes about her glamor-free routine like some kind of self-appointed anthropologist, extrapolating the lives of the customers whose rooms she tidies from the artifacts they leave behind. But it’s her dreams that matter here, modest though they are, suggesting a humane companion piece to Korean breakout Parasite, both of which erase the class differences between people of privilege and the help” wrote Debruge.
The Chambermaid had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, played in numerous international film festivals, and had a successful theatrical release in various territories including the U.S., Mexico, and the U.K. It’s ranked number two as best reviewed film of the year according to Rotten Tomatoes.
