After fleeing an abusive relationship, a young mother Alex finds herself in a nightmare of complications when all she wants is to keep her daughter safe. She eventually finds a job as a maid, cleaning houses as she fights to provide for her child and build them a better future. With a crumbling support system, mentally ill mother and psychologically abusive ex, Alex tries to navigate her new life completely alone. Margaret Qualley is a simple actress who approaches the role with a believable, maternal but most importantly a natural depiction of a single mother. There are light hearted moments and disheartening moments within this limited series, it can definitely be an exhausting watch during the first few episodes as we watch Alex’s battle for safety become more difficult. In saying that, this series did a fantastic job at juggling the light and dark moments of life, we see Alex at her best and at her worst within the space of one episode and I found this depiction to be really fluctuating and totally accurate to reality.
Although I have very little negative comment for this series, I will say it was ten episodes long with each episode spanning the 50-60 minute mark. As a limited series this could have easily been half and cut out a lot of empty scenes and dialogue.
Margaret is a stand out, alongside her mother she held her own and brought a compelling performance from beginning to end. She was captivating in the role of Alex and I would love to see her tackle another hard hitting role like this.
Overall, MAID (2022) was a truly surprising series for me to watch. I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did and to become almost addicted to watching episode after episode. The story and context is strong, it is a tough watch at times and really makes you think about everyones situation in life and that you never know what someone is going through. Alex is such a likeable character and was written perfectly and performed perfectly too, the whole cast felt believable and I thoroughly enjoyed watching this Netflix limited series. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves a compelling drama with some light hearted comedy melted in.
Commentaires