Why we love hotels? – 2

Jennifer Lopez is well known for her enchanting voice, passionate performance, and Aphrodite-like amazing body even 20 years after. Well, although that is what all of us thought about the rebellious J.Lo, she proved us all wrong as she had put on the table a new wonderful trait, which is the breathtaking acting of Thespis, the first person ever to appear on stage as an actor playing a character in ancient Greek mythology. I say Thespis because Greeks concluded that he invented the scene of the tragedy and they also attributed to him the introduction of masks in representation, and that is exactly what J. Lo has done, the only difference is that she never uses masks since her face can shape as many of them to convey the inner feelings of the character she embodies.

In Maid in Manhattan, Jennifer Lopez entertained us one more time with the role of Marisa Ventura, a single mother who works as a devoted maid in the first-class Manhattan hotel. The hand of fate designed her random meeting with Christopher Marshall, a high-class politician descended from a famous political family. Christopher Marshall, who was played by the legendary Ralph Fiennes, finds himself in a passionate love story with a mysterious mother whose child is a promising future politician himself.

The prominent politician was mistakenly led to believe that Marisa Ventura, the elegant dressed good looking mother randomly met, is a guest at the hotel while in fact, she was just a maid trying out a fancy dress which was left by Caroline Lane, a rich Sotheby’s director who has just switched from the Four Seasons Hotel in the request of a bark view.

The two lovers from opposite worlds find themselves in a passionate romantic relationship in which the maid feels the guilt of not being honest about who really she was and the politician enjoys the different raw attitudes of a lady who belongs to the simple working class.

the paparazzi, being meddlesome and curious, began casting a shadow on the mysterious romance of the playboy politician making it clear for the hotel management that the maid has exceeded her role from room service to impersonating a society lady which unfortunately has put an end not only to her potential promotion to management but also to her very career as a maid, Marisa was fired.

Although Marisa thought it was the end of her world, it was exactly the opposite since the whole escalation has proved that Christopher Marshall was not one of those words selling politicians, he was a man of dignity who can resume the relationship despite knowing the reality of Marisa Ventura, he valued her affection and elegance over her job title which has also promoted to an assistant manager.

Talking hotels, in the first scene we see Marisa enter the hotel she works at, we feel that she starts to detach from her miserable life as a single mother and a poor young lady that lives the tough life of the working class. We feel the positive vibes of the small hotel community from the fun small conversations she had with her coworkers, the funny videos captured in the cameras monitoring room, and the light comedy scene with the other maids, we also enjoy meeting with management in which the hotel members discuss the working plans and the expected guests whom their comfort is what the meeting is about. We subconsciously feel that discussion and planning are about our own comfort when we visit the hotel as guests sometime in the dramatic fictional time, maybe even in real-time. We, as interacting viewers, project ourselves into the story and become unseen guests in that hotel.

We like the conversation between Marisa the dedicated maid and Caroline Lane the arrogant but elegant guest which is indeed a conversation between different classes gathered in the same room, we also like the scene of Marisa walking in the corridors with those room service butlers knocking on other guests rooms, it is a whole new story behind every closed door, maybe not any story but even our own.

Then there come many scenes outside the hotel but, ironically, we don’t feel happy watching this scene. We, deep inside ourselves, want the storytelling in the scene outside the hotel to be shorter and faster as we want to go back to the hotel, why? well because hotels are comfortable to us even as viewers, we have unpacked our Luggage in the first scene. Our Luggage is full of visual adventures stories, exciting traveling times, strangers who represent different stories and cultures, and exotic new places.

So, in Maid in Manhattan, a hotel is a land for a lot of opportunities, an opportunity to get promoted from a maid to assistant manager, an opportunity to wear an expensive fancy dress and have a romantic time wearing it, and also an opportunity to meet the love of your life.

But wait, isn’t Ralph Fiennes is Gustave H? the main character in The Grand Budapest Hotel? who plays a role of a concierge who is wrongly framed for murder at the Grand Budapest Hotel? we will come to that spectacular movie with an artistic theme and experimental theater in another blog. And also, isn’t Natasha Richardson is the beautiful lady in The Comfort of Strangers? the 1990 film when they played the unmarried English couple Colin and Mary who were vacationing in a hotel in Venice? That is also another film that took place in a hotel and was attached with dark stories and deep realities, we will also discuss it on another blog.

Maid in Manhattan filming took place at both New York’s Roosevelt Hotel and the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

I leave you with a famous quote from the film when Lionel Bloch who was portrayed by Bob Hoskins, the great actor, said after submitting his resignation in alliance with Marisa Ventura after she was fired.

“to serve people, it takes dignity and intelligence, but remember, they’re only people with money, so even though we serve them, we are not their servants. What you did, does not define who we are… what defines us, is how well we rise, after falling.”
– Maid in Manhattan 2002