Panayiota (Marisha Triantafyllidou) is a downtrodden 30-something housewife, at the beck and call of unemployed husband Kostas (Dimitris Imellos), a brattish teenager and timid young son. Domestic duties dominate her life, trying to make ends meet despite her husband's gambling. When she hears that a new shopping centre is hiring cleaners she's quick in signing up, a chance to improve the family's finances and see something of life outside her own four walls.
While the other workers bemoan the pay, the conditions and the management, Panayiota swiftly becomes a model employee, always available for overtime, always willing to cover for others. To her the drudgery of the represents a freedom, the camaraderie of her fellow cleaners provides a friendship she's never experienced before (in one sequence we see them celebrating her birthday with a cake, only for her to return home to find her family have forgotten), and the demands of her exploitative manager give her a sense of being needed. Even the job comes to an end she will have been changed by the experience. As will Kostas, with the new financial balance of power a threat to his concept of masculinity.
Told in a linear realistic style this movie is a commentary on the social turmoil brought on by the financial crisis that has hit Greece, a feminist, middle-aged coming of age tale and a visual paean to self-realisation. Triantafyllidou is wonderful in portraying Panayiota's slow, steady development, barely capable of a smile early on, shyly emerging from the shadows as the story unfolds, hinting at a potential that has been oppressed by her background. The job itself doesn't matter - it's the previously unrecognisable possibilities it offers that mean so much.
Low key, sensitive, hopeful, this is well worth a couple of hours of your time.
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