Maid - a single mother's journey of breaking free

I am really fascinated with Netflix’s limited series. I think it is a largely safe bet for binge watchers, you get more involvement than a movie yet you don’t have to commit to a full TV show! You can get through so many limited series in so little time. The writers get to explore a story in greater detail. So, it is a win-win for both the writers as well as the viewers.

Of the many limited series available on Netflix, I recently happened to watch “Maid”. It is a 10-episodes series which portrays the struggle of a single mother to a 2-year old girl, who runs away from an abusive relationship to make a better world for her daughter.

Alex

Alex is a 25-year white woman who is a single child of single parents, now a single mother herself. She walks out of an abusive relationship with her little daughter, Maddy. She flees in the middle of the night with barely $18 in her wallet. She has nowhere else to go. Literally homeless and completely broke, she approaches the social services for help. America has a system in place for abused, single mothers which provides them accommodation in a DV shelter (read, domestic violence shelter). But, there is an enormous amount of paperwork involved. With the lack of a college degree and job skills, after extensive amount of convincing, she gets a job with Value Maids. But, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The real hardships are yet to come.

Time to Escape

The show opens with a scene where you can see Alex stealthily creeping out of bed while her husband, Sean continues to sleep next to her. She grabs a bag, quickly throws in some stuff and holding her daughter, she tiptoes out of the house. She gets into the car and is on the run, which wakes Sean. He tries to stop her but she speeds away. On the road, flashbacks show why was she fleeing. The night before, Sean got very drunk and threw a glass jar at her, which was a near miss. He then goes on to punch a hole in their trailer. The scene ends with Alex picking glass pieces out of Maddy’s hair. Scared stiff for her and Maddy’s safety, she finally leaves before one of them gets hurt.

The Struggles

As the story unfolds, we see the hardships Alex has to endure. She is practically living for her daughter. She didn’t have a university degree nor job skills. She doesn’t have a fixed abode. She needs to find subsidised housing, but in order to get that, she first has to find a job. The social worker helps her get a job as a maid. But that barely pays. She has to go cleaning one house to another with a meagre pay. She is precisely living from one pay-check to another. She has to get food on the table for Maddy, buy her cleaning supplies and pay for gas for the car she takes to car, co-pay for Maddy’s daycare.

Her undiagnosed bipolar mother is far from reliable. Alex’s artistic mother is always high, falls in and out of relationships, seeking attention and love. She also has listed her home on AirBnB and is living with her boyfriend, Basil in a RV. She also has to deal with the custody battles with Sean.

Emotional Abuse

With the episodes rolling in, we get more insights of how her childhood and current circumstances have shaped her into the person she is today. Emotional abuse is not an easy subject and the show has done an accurate portrayal of it, exploring the subtle effects and forms of emotional abuse. Most often, the victims themselves aren’t aware that they are being abused. Unless it is physical abuse, the society see you as a victim of abuse.

As for Alex, she too was clueless that she had been victim of emotional abuse for years. She narrates an incident when Sean had taken away all her cards just because she had missed out on paying the electricity bill. She also is dealing with anxiety and has her share of episodes of panic.

The System

There is an accurate portrayal a good job of showing how broken state-run government systems are. The system has endless challenges and is unequipped to offer basic assistance to abused, single women.

Closing remarks

Margaret Qualley, who plays Alex, has done a fantastic job! She is definitely the star of the show. We need more stories like this! It is as much motivational as it is heart-wrenching. The journey that Alex undertakes to piece her life back together with grit while shrugging away the hardships makes for a must watch show!

Cup of Reviews would rate the movie : 89/100