Over the last few days, we watched a couple of films.

Neither of the movies were path-breaking or landmarks but by any measure they were decent enough.

* Given our recently developed fondness for Korean films, one of the movies was not surprisingly the 2010 film Housemaid featuring the lovely Jeon Do-yeon and directed by Im Sang-soo.

While our previous Korean films were oriented around violent serial killers, Housemaid belongs to a wholly different genre.

A satirical and ultimately tragic take on the lives of the wealthy and their cavalier treatment of underlings, Housemaid is a fitting indictment of the top rung of society that treats household help as slaves.

Jeon Do-yeon is a beautiful woman, a talented actress and a great joy to watch on the screen.

Avid moviegoers will remember Jeon Do-yeon for the Best Actress award she picked up at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival for her role in Secret Sunshine.

In Housemaid, she does a fine job in the eponymous role of housemaid to a wealthy family.

No sooner does she join the rich household than we find her one night coupling with the rich master of the house interrupted only by sips of fine wine.

Well, it seems Indians are not the only Asians keen on humping their maids. 😉

We had no issues with the beginning or the middle of the movie, proceeding as it does smoothly into an adulterous affair, leading soon enough to a pregnancy and sliding ultimately to the unfortunate effects of the revelation of the pregnancy.

But the ending of the movie was unconvincing and left us deeply disappointed given the housemaid’s promise of revenge for the wrongs done to her.

If what the housemaid does at the end is revenge then dictionaries need to rewrite the meaning of the term.
************************************
* Our second film was Cedar Rapids, a 2011 film that had a limited release in the U.S.

Directed by Miguel Arteta, Cedar Rapids features Ed Helms as a completely naive but sincere and decent insurance agent Tim Lippe.

When Lippe is sent from his small town to Cedar Rapids to represent his company at an important annual convention, his mandate is to bring back the prestigious ‘Two-Diamond‘ award the firm has been consistently winning.

Soon after his arrival, Lippe soon learns that all is not what it seems.

And that’s not just with what’s happening at the convention or about the awards his company picked up in the past but extend to aspects of Lippe’s life as well including his ‘pre-engagement’ relationship with his old school teacher whom he’s been humping a couple of times a week.

Ed Helms does a great job bringing a genuinly ingenuous touch to his character even as things are collapsing around him at the convention and his Two-Diamond mission is in jeopardy.

But do such people exist in real-life? Even if it’s Iowa.

Oh well, this is just a movie.

Supporting Helms ably is John Reilly, who is cast as Dean Ziegler, a rival insurance agent and loudmouth Lippe is ordered to stay away from.

  Cedar Rapids, Ed Helms, Housemaid, Jeon Do-yeon, Korean Films