2010’s The Housemaid is a remake (of sorts?) of a 1960 film. I’ve never seen it but certainly might like it since I liked the remake (directed by Im Sang-soo). In it, Eun-yi Li is a new housemaid for a rich Korean family. Seduced by Hoon, the man of the house, Eun-yi is the Karen McDougal to Hoon’s Donald Trump. Once this is discovered, Hoon’s wife and mother-in-law become bloodthirsty. Eun-yi is in truth wronged and turns vengeful.

The film is smartly, brilliantly directed and edited. Eun-yi standing at a small distance from an older female employee, a fire burning in a lengthy fireplace in the background, suggests the housemaid’s hope for a camaraderie with the woman that does not yet exist. The acting is top-notch, especially that of Jeon-Do Yeon, with her flawless nuance and kind feeling, in the title role. She’s required to be sexy too, and although her breasts may be small, they are shot in a way that renders them utterly lovely.

The climax and denouement of The Housemaid are pretty weird. The only thing I can submit about the denouement is that perhaps it is meant to show that the movie’s rich folks are more or less content in their decadence.

(In Korean with English subtitles)

Without being pro-illegal immigration, Stephen Frears‘s Dirty Pretty Things (2002) focuses on a London man who severely exploits African and Muslim immigrants. It is hard to say why, but the film simply does not succeed. Well, I can say this much: there is no chemistry between Chiwetel Ejiofor and Audrey Tautou. Not for a second did I believe Tautou, playing a foreign hotel maid, was in love with Ejiofor.

As well, it would be better had the exploiter (Sergi Lopez) not been a caricature. But beyond this, the picture is still off base. It seems hollow. I don’t think it should have been made.

Irwin Shaw‘s short story “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses” is able to make one yearn for Sundays in New York City of old, postwar.

Michael and Frances are taking a pleasant walk on the city streets, but a problem is rising in their marriage. Michael compulsively looks at other women everywhere he goes, and he looks, Frances says, as though he wants them. Frances is persistently honest about her husband—no surprise there; then Michael becomes honest about himself. Not, however, without certain indications about Michael’s abiding love for his pretty-girl wife (in the last sentence, “such nice legs”). Will this husband redeem himself?

I read this enjoyable story on classicshorts.com