Film
The Chambermaid
A Slovak period drama set in pre-WWI Prague, following an intense bond between a peasant chambermaid and a noble's daughter. It's a tender, urgent film about two girls finding refuge in each other across an unbridgeable class divide, rendered with careful attention to the textures of their constrained lives. For anyone drawn to intimate character studies set against historical upheaval.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you want a patient period romance built on a class gap and a friendship that tightens into something braver, and you don't mind a story that lingers on glances more than plot.
Skip it if you want brisk plotting, since its romance and its unequal household unfold at the pace of quiet observation rather than incident.
What it asks of you: It asks for a couple of hours of close attention to faces and rooms, with a melancholy, unhurried shape across its 110 minutes rather than big set pieces.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Carol2015
A restrained, emotionally devastating portrait of two women finding love in a world designed to punish them for it. The cinematography alone—all muted greens and amber light—will stay with you.
But The pacing is deliberately slow and the ending is not triumphant. If you need narrative momentum or catharsis, this will frustrate you.

The Favourite2018
Two women at opposite ends of power locked in a relationship that's sexual, psychological and political all at once. Sumptuous period detail and a script that crackles with tension and dark humour.
But The tone shifts wildly—moments of farce sit next to genuine cruelty. Some viewers find it tonal whiplash rather than sophistication.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire2019
A French painter and her female subject fall into an intimate, unspoken romance while trapped in an isolated château. Visually ravishing and achingly tender, about desire and the impossibility of holding onto beauty.
But Almost entirely dialogue-free in stretches. The pacing is meditative bordering on static, and there's no plot to speak of—just moments and glances.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Chambermaid
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Céline and Julie Go Boating1974
Both films locate their emotional centre in the bond between two women across social divides, but where The Chambermaid is constrained and tragic, this is wild, playful and generative. Same core relationship, opposite energy.
A 193-minute French New Wave film about two women who meet by chance and fall into a dreamy, playful, endlessly inventive friendship. It's joyful in a way most period dramas aren't—anarchic, funny, utterly alive.
But Nearly four hours long, mostly plotless, sometimes incomprehensible. It requires patience and a willingness to surrender to its logic rather than follow narrative logic.

More like this (8)
The Nightingale2018
An Australian film set in 1820s Tasmania following a young woman seeking revenge through a harsh landscape. Raw, visceral, and uncompromising about female rage and survival against systemic brutality.
But Extremely violent, including sexual violence. It's deliberately difficult to watch in places, and not everyone comes to historical drama for that level of darkness.

Ammonite2020
A paleontologist and a restless married woman form a quiet, charged romance on the English coast. Beautifully shot, with genuine chemistry between its leads and a real sense of yearning across social barriers.
But Very slow-burn. The relationship develops almost entirely through glances and proximity, which some find profound and others find glacial.

Thelma & Louise1991
Two women from different worlds escape their lives together and find freedom, sisterhood and agency in the process. A propulsive, funny, furious film that still feels radical thirty years on.
But The ending is dark and there's graphic violence early on. The politics are explicit and uncompromising, which can feel heavy-handed to some.

The Handmaiden2016
A Korean period thriller about con artists and desire, with two women at its centre who may or may not be what they seem. Visually sumptuous, genuinely surprising, and thrumming with erotic tension.
But The plot is deliberately convoluted and requires close attention. Some major plot points involve sexual coercion, which the film doesn't always handle with clear moral clarity.

Sanditon2019
A BBC adaptation of Austen's unfinished novel, centring a woman of enterprise and independence trying to survive in a patriarchal seaside resort. Witty, visually gorgeous, and genuinely engaged with economic precarity.
But Deviates significantly from the source material to include contemporary concerns, which purists dislike. It also ends on a cliffhanger that took years to resolve.

Below Her Mouth2017
A frank, sensual film about two women from different classes who meet by chance and experience sexual and emotional awakening together. Interested in desire as a physical, urgent thing rather than romance.
But Sparse on plot and character development outside the bedroom. The dialogue can feel thin, and if you need narrative structure you'll find it lacking.

The Servant1963
Both examine how intimacy and proximity can scramble class hierarchies in a wealthy household. But this is a thriller about power and corruption where The Chambermaid is an elegy—it shows what happens when the relationship curdles.
Joseph Losey's masterpiece about a master and servant whose relationship destabilises and inverts over time. Brilliantly acted, formally audacious, and deeply concerned with power dynamics, class and desire in confined domestic spaces.
But It's abstract and psychological rather than narrative-driven. The ending is deliberately ambiguous and unsettling rather than clarifying. Also: filmed in black and white in 1963, so it requires adjustment.

Andromeda Nebula1967
Both are period pieces about worlds with rigid social structures—one historical, one imagined. This asks: what if we built a world where the rigid hierarchies of The Chambermaid's Prague simply didn't exist? A radical counterpoint to historical constraint.
A Soviet science-fiction epic about a utopian future where humans have transcended hierarchy and gender roles, built on a vast visual scale. It's gorgeous, strange, and genuinely interested in what freedom might look like.
But It's nearly three hours of meditative, philosophical Soviet sci-fi with minimal plot. If you want narrative momentum or conventional character drama, this is the opposite.

People
Cast
Dana DroppováAnna 'Anka' Murančíková
Radka CaldováResi
Vica KerekesLíza
Zuzana MauréryGnädige
Anna GeislerováKristína
Cyril DobrýGustav
Karel DobrýMilostpán
Peter NádasdiJancsi
Lukáš PelčŠtefan
Gabriela DolnáGrossmutter
Marko IgondaVdovec- Mariana Čengel SolčanskáMamička
Directing
- Mariana Čengel SolčanskáDirector
Writing
- Hana LasicováScreenplay
- Mariana Čengel SolčanskáScreenplay
- Hana LasicováStory
Production
- Jiří VlachExecutive Producer
- Alena MüllerováProducer
- Radka MachalováProducer
- Simona Bago MócikováProducer
- Viktor SchwarczProducer
- Vladimír BurianekProducer
- Lukáš MarhefkaProduction Manager
- Samuel VojtekProduction Manager