I'll have to admit to a long-standing partiality to French cinema in general, and that Claude Chabrol is my favourite director of all time. He made some turkeys in his day too (Les Innocents aux Mains Sales, La Décade Prodigieuse, Dr. M), but this is a good show.
Starring Sandrine Bonnaire as the blank, illiterate housemaid in the employ of a well-to-do family, initially all is well, but tensions gradually emerge.
We're in familiar Chabrol territory here (not that that's a bad thing); the film is not without humour though, provided mostly by Isabelle Huppert's feisty, sluttish postmistress. The ending too, if somewhat casually clinical, is strangely amusing.
Nerds may notice some brief clips of 'Les Noces Rouges'(1973, also by Chabrol) on the TV in one scene.
If anyone is interested/reading this, my favourite Chabrol movies (in no particular order) are:
La Rupture (1975)
Les Bonnes Femmes (1960)
Une Partie de Plaisir (1975)
Les Biches (1968)
Sometimes, the order in which you see/hear things impacts which you like/remember best.
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