In a bid to distract herself from an affair, a narcissistic woman befriends a cleaning lady with burn scars, but she soon discovers that the scars may be more than skin deep.
"A twisted story of obsession and love"
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8/25/2019
6 / 10
What once started as a short film in 2016 now has become a full length feature film. Both directed by Jon Knautz, "The Cleaning Lady" tells the story of 'Shelly' (Rachel Alig), who becomes the cleaning lady for 'Alice' (Alexis Kendra). 'Shelly's face is terribly scarred and at first the introverted woman barely speaks, avoids eye contact and and her personality stands in a total contrast to 'Alice', who does makeup work for a living. 'Alice' fell terribly in love with 'Michael' (Stelio Savante), a married man. Knowing that this relationship is kind of toxic, she attends to a self help group, 'The Love Addicts' (same thing as the AA, just for the relationship thing), and the movie takes a while to get going. A little too long, because first this film feels a lot like a low budget drama and aside from the opening, where you see 'Shelly' putting rats into a blender, there is nothing horrifying going on for quite some time. So long, that you actually get bored with the film. We see the two women meet up for scheduled cleaning appointments, in between we get the relationship going back and forth and a deeper look into the childhood of 'Shelly', filled with abuse by her mother, scenes where they just sit down for dinner, doing makeup together... Boring stuff for the most part. When things finally get going, "The Cleaning Lady" turns into the Horror movie I was waiting for though, and I really liked how things played out. Unfortunately it took so long to get there, that I can't really call it a good film anymore. It is watchable and there are quite a few nice scenes if you have the patience to sit through the long intro, but if you don't, "The Cleaning Lady" might not be for you. The acting is fine and the burned skin effects look very convincing (especially if you seen what a beauty Rachel Alig actually is) and for this being an extension of a short film, it wasn't bad at all. But at least a little excitement during the first 30 to 40 minutes would have been nice.
_You're perfect now._
This movie will make you feel for Shelly and Alice in different ways.
The slow pace of this works well cause it isn't something that can't be pushed quickly to the surface.
Scars, both physical and mental, can run deep and the director shows this with the two women well.
Also, damn Shelly has a backstory. Her mother is the worst.
Pairing this with _Single White Female (1992) or Audition (1999)_ would make for a good double feature of a thriller viewing.
