Saturday, February 27, 2021

THE CLEANING LADY (2019) - Mommy Knows Best..



Sometimes we all have to do things we don't want to do...

And how sad and unfortunately true that is. Sometimes we do not have a choice in the matter and other times we are responsible for whatever unpleasant decision we make. When you take into consideration how unfortunate some people's circumstances are compared to yours, it has to make you wonder, could you get out of the toxicity you yourself have created? Learn something here..

Alice is a beautiful, blonde haired, Barbie-esque, self-employed aesthetician. On the surface it seems as if though she has it all. Except for one thing that is not so perfect in her life; her married boyfriend. Michael is married with a son and though he claims he is not in love with his wife anymore, Alice as well as her sponsor knows he will never divorce his wife. She did not know he was married until she was up to her neck in love with him, and now she cannot muster up the strength to leave him.  One day, Alice meets a Cleaning Lady and well, the friendship takes an over dramatic turn..

Shelly, the cleaning lady, has a horribly disfigured face from a  burn she suffered as a child. It is a complete contrast from flawless looking Alice, who befriends the poor girl. It is a bit difficult to say certain things to Shelly with Alice's heart in the right place but yet her quest to make Shelly perfect by offering her to show her how to use makeup, can be pretty insulting. Yet Shelly too, can learn a thing or two from Alice, considering Alice has been nothing but genuinely kind to her. But that kindness becomes a portal for Shelly's unquenchable obsession with Alice. She chloroforms Alice in her sleep and makes a face mask using an imprint of Alice's face with glue. Shelly just wants to experience that perfection even if it is temporary...


The scars Shelly has is not just external. The deep rooted internal scar is her evil, bat shit insane mother Colleen. Colleen tried to make her daughter perfect by applying gallons of make up on her, making sure she did not eat enough, and turning her into a piggy bank for child prostitution. Shelly longed so much for a normal life where as a child she wouldn't have to resort to turning tricks for men old enough to be her father, but Colleen won't hear of it. She implants a deep rooted internal scar into Shelly, which causes Shelly to snap and attack one of her "clients", whom ends up throwing a pot of scalding oil in her face, permanently scarring her. Colleen is still adamant about her daughter returning to "work" after she heals, but Shelly refuses and tells her mother how much she hates her. Colleen threatens to cut Shelly's tongue out with a scissor but then "snaps out of it" and embraces her daughter. Shelly while in her mother's embrace, stabs her with the very same scissor. 

Shelly snaps again when she kills everything standing in the way of her obsession with Alice. She scalds Michael with acid and has Alice stab him. She murders Michael's wife who finds Alice hostage. It is just her and Alice now...

On so many levels, Shelly's story is tragic if not twisted. It goes above and beyond anything that is understandable and acceptable when looking at her vile and insane mother. Who actually does this to their own child? Shelly longed so much to be perfect but even the last time she was pretty, she was unhappy. Honestly, you want to cry for her. A young beautiful child was raped literally from her innocence and because of that, you cannot resent Shelly. 

But the quest for perfection has it's own deep lies. Is only skin deep..








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