“My happiest day hasn’t happened yet but it’s about to.” – Alex
The Netflix miniseries Maid, is based on a memoir by Stephanie Land, called Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive. 📖 If you’re looking for something light and cheery, this is not it. But if you’re looking for something you cannot stop watching, here it is. 📺
While the premise involves the life of a maid, the title is hugely misleading. What this series grapples with is actually so much more – namely issues of poverty, parenthood, domestic violence, and an epic loss of control of one’s life. 😞 But interspersed between every dark corner, is a hope and will to survive in the protagonist, that we too, feel it. 🙏🏽
Alex, played by Margaret Qualley (the actual daughter of Andie McDowell, who plays her mother), hits bumps at every turn, some of which are catastrophic. 👀 Qualley, with her face alone, is magnificent. A mother hopelessly devoted to not giving up, her fear, frustration, and relentless will are palpable. Nick Robinson (from FX’s series Teacher) as co-parent Sean, is superb – a troubled and brutal man trapped in trauma and addiction, with a life he too cannot escape from. Andie McDowell, as Alex’s mom, is utterly believable as a bi-polar woman, and victim also, showcasing a pattern of abuse that is generational. Her mental health struggles are raw and real. As Alex’s daughter Maddy, Rylea Nevaeh Whittet is extraordinary. The tender moments between Alex and Maddy are overwhelming at times. 😢
Rounding out the cast are Anika Noni Rose, one of Alex’s primary clients, and Tracy Vilar as her boss. Both are excellent in their roles, allowing us to see the different ladders of status in the world, and how much individuals are compelled to act in self-interest before anything else.
It is worth coming back to Qualley, who steals every single scene she is in. Maid tells an unbearably bleak story, in a most beautiful of ways – reminding us that life is hardship, trauma, and pain. Yet also self-reliance and hope. ❤️
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