Dorathen
Better Late Then Never
Abegail Noëlle
While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.
Cody
One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.
diasdelluvia2003
Adult film because it has some spanking or whatever. I think she just had a desire to see how a controlled little pain feels. But it's really the story of a sort of naive, beautiful, authentic young woman. She has a slow mind, but more than enough intelligence, audacity and heart to balance her life. Many funny situations. It's a light film (no heavy plot). It's very bright with lots of light, nothing dark to it, even though it's mostly inside the hotel. The humaneness is touching, she wants to know herself and exposes herself to chance learning situations. It has a quiet, subdued sound; the plot is very easy to follow, which is soothing. Some surprises, natural, ... She wants to know herself and see how far she can go. I really liked it.
Horst in Translation ([email protected])
"Das Zimmermädchen( Lynn)" or "The Chambermaid( Lynn)" is a German(-language) film from 2014, so it is already two years old. The writer and director is Ingo Haeb and these 85 minutes are a contender for his most known work. The title character is played by Vicky Krieps and her co-lead is the more known Lena Lauzemis. This is the story of a chamber maid, who keeps crawling under beds to listen to the secrets of the hotel guests she should actually work for. Well.. she does, but she also spies on them and a lot of it has to do with sexual pleasure. Chamber maid, sexual please? You heard that before? Probably from Sergej Moya's much more explicit short film "Hotel Desire". But these are all the parallels you will find I guess. Because not only is this one here a feature film, the main character is also entirely different. I am not too sure if Krieps fit the character as honestly she just comes off as somebody who would prudely work in her profession and not risk her job for some indecent preferences. And while Lauzemis fit the character nicely, also all the sexually-flavored scenes felt a bit out of character for the title character in my opinion. I guess the main reason why this movie is somewhat known is probably because some people get curious because of the lesbian references, but apart from some naked skin and very non-explicit intercourse, there is nothing controversial or "shocking" in here. But sadly, there is also nothing really good here. I found the main character mostly forgettable, which may have to do with the performance, but also with the way she was written. And the supporting characters were disappointing too. When you have somebody like Christine Schorn available, you have to make much more from that apart from a pretty pretentious scene which is not half as ambitious as it wants to be with the character asking if something is wrong. As a whole this film was not a failure, but I am slightly glad it did not go on for another 15 minutes as I felt it already had some lengths the way it actually is. Watch something else instead.
IndustriousAngel
It's a very small, intimate story - the "heroine" is Lynn, a grey mouse of a girl, mentally slightly challenged and shy as we learn very soon but competent in her job as chambermaid (possibly a bit helped by her compulsory cleaning habit), gets her kicks in an otherwise boring life (even sleeping with the manager seems more like a chore, for both of them) from spying on the hotel guests, trying on their clothes and even hiding under their beds. That way she learns about Chiara, a tough boyish call-girl whose services she enlists in the following weeks. And as she starts falling in love with this incongruous partner (hopeless, of course), her life starts to open up a bit, too. The movie ends on an unfirm note - Lynn's self-destructive traits are still there (she even had to steal from customers to afford Chiara's services) but she seems like a much more confident character by now, ready to face the future even without Chiara.That's not much of a story, and the only thing keeping this from being a bore is Vicky Krieps' performance as Lynn - but that has to be witnessed. Her play is so immediate and natural I actually felt like spying on someone's real life in many scenes - creepy feeling, indeed! The sets are outstanding, too - nothing fancy but everything composed with a severe neatness that nicely complements the story. It's not a perfect film - many scenes are too long, some even a waste, especially the character setup at the start goes on for quite a bit longer than necessary - but with 10 of those minutes cut this would get even a 9/10 from me!
Larry Silverstein
This is a difficult film to describe, no less rate. I'll note up front for those viewers that have concerns on these matters, there's plenty of nudity here, as well as a number of explicit sex scenes, some of which involve S&M and voyeurism.Vicky Krieps gives a solid performance here, as Lynn, a strange and depressive young woman working as a chambermaid at a local hotel. She's been in a mental health facility in the past, remains in therapy, and clearly has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.Aside from having sex with her boss (Steffen Munster) at the hotel, her real thrills come from hiding under the beds of some guests and spying on their activities. One day, she overhears a conversation, in the hotel lobby, between a call girl and a man who are about to rent a room, and finds out the room number. She races upstairs ahead of them and hides under the bed.The call girl, Chiara, ably portrayed by Lena Lauzemis, turns out to specialize as a dominatrix, and Lynn is turned on by the session, and copies down Chiara's phone number. Lynn ends up calling her and scheduling a house call with Chiara and sets up a meeting.What will develop between the two though will be a bonding and eventually even a friendship (OK-so it's not on the scale of "Pretty Woman"). However, we will see Lynn slowly coming out of her "shell" to some extent, even trying to get closer to her emotionally distant mother.This movie, written and directed by Ingo Haeb, is definitely geared to a thin slice of filmgoers. If you are not turned off by the graphic sexual and fetishistic elements, you may find some of the other elements here of creepiness, eroticism, and even some dark humor to be to your liking, but be prepared for a very strange ride.
