So much average

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Lynn has 'issues' she is being treated for her condition and has a job as a maid at a nice hotel. She is a very hard worker and is obsessive compulsive. Cleaning is her ideal job and she excels at it. She hos has desires, which leads her to doing things that she may not have done with enough time to think.She also is a voyeur; in that she hides in the guests' rooms to observe what they get up to, and I do not mean which channels they want to watch on the television either. Then one day she experiences an encounter between a dominatrix and her client and she is inexorably drawn to the exotic and alluring creature – and so begins her journey.Now this is a film that will appeal to as many as it repels in that it is about sexual unorthodoxy but is not a sex film per se. It is a very good and even intimate exploration of lust and desire and the fetishistic side of human nature. It is well made and acted and has those moments where very little appears to be happening but that helps juxtapose the mundanity of the ordinary as it segues into the extraordinary in other peoples ordinariness. In German with good sub titles this is for you if you enjoy films that area bit left field and as such recommended.

"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.

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!

Some little films come along that challenge the status quo of current cinema menus. Such is the case with this little film that dares go places others fear – and it is to the credit of Film Movement to keep these before our eyes. Without the use of apocalyptic subject matter or robots or building explosions or cars crashes or potty mouth dialogue or the repetitious Marvel Comics backlog of reruns, THE CHAMBERMAID is simply a study of one young girls mind – the past effects of abuse and mental illness, and the need to be loved or at least truly desired. The unlikely pairing of an obsessive-compulsive chambermaid and an androgynous dominatrix proves oddly liberating for the eponymous heroine of this film. 'The beauty of cleaning is that everything gets dirty again' is the motto of Lynn (Vicky Krieps), someone who needs to cling to what she knows in order to at least feel safe, though routines, places and objects initially seem preferable to people. In time Lynn is seen handling guests' objects and then secretly begins to spy on them in their rooms, it slowly becomes clear that she's starting to find other people fascinating, if perhaps a bit startling. In her obsessive-compulsive role as a chambermaid she crawls under a bed to vacuum the bottom of a mattress, or uses a dentist's angled mirror to check that she's scrubbed all the dirt from the underside of a toilet rim. She rarely interacts with others, yet is endlessly curious about how others live, inspecting their habits with the kind of baffled interest generally reserved for other species. She tries on their clothes (men's as well as women's), examines the pictures in their wallets and reads the inscriptions on their rings. She even hides beneath their beds to observe them unseen. Along comes a guest (Christian Aumer) with a bottle-blond dominatrix, Chiara (Lena Lauzemis), experienced almost entirely through the use of sound and the brilliant face of Lynn, who's hiding under the bed and can only image what must be going on. Through Chiara, it dawns on Lynn that pain doesn't necessarily need to be negative and that intimacy can happen in a context that's a lot more controlled than in real life (read: paid for). This sets into motion the film's last act, which may be predictable emotionally: the encounter has less to do with S&M than with a slow, careful initiation into intimacy, Chiara seeming to know just how to gently nudge her client into accepting, then welcoming, her touch; their sex-for-hire transactions morph into something deeper, their lovemaking achieving a unique blend of force and tenderness. Lynn learns to interact directly with another human being while Chiara discovers a genuine liking for her pupil. Chiara is amused by Lynn's strictly regimented routine, just as Lynn is bemused by the lack of structure in Chiara's freelance lifestyle.New subject matter realized in a very sensitive way, this film will fascinate those fatigued by movies that rely solely on special effects as opposed to human stories. Masterfully directed by Ingo Haeb.