Based mostly on the bestselling thriller novel of the identical identify, Paul Feig’s The Housemaid considerations a younger girl making an attempt to go away her troubled previous behind her. By way of voiceover, Millie (Sydney Sweeney) explains that she’s been dwelling in a automobile, is on parole, and desperately wants revenue. Regardless of all odds, she pulls off a profitable interview with the rich Nina Winchester (Amanda Seyfried) for the job of live-in maid and shortly finds herself on a path to a livable future. However virtually as quickly as Millie meets Nina’s husband, Andrew (Brandon Sklenar), and their withdrawn daughter (Indiana Elle), Nina begins to behave erratically.
The whole lot in The Housemaid is unsure, proper all the way down to Sweeney’s unconvincing efficiency as a girl making an attempt to keep away from being despatched again to jail. The movie pronounces its concern with psychological ambiance at first, which begins to really feel greater than slightly incongruous alongside the modern pop songs on the soundtrack. The Housemaid is billed as a thriller, however throughout one bafflingly scored intercourse scene between Millie and Andrew, you could be excused for considering that you just’re watching one thing out of the hot-to-trot rom-com Anybody However You.
In distinction to movies with comparable setups, like Heretic, the place the home looks like a respiration illustration of the proprietor’s fractured interiority, the mansion in The Housemaid is as characterless because the Davenports. Nonetheless, whereas Millie and Andrew really feel like regular-girl and Prince Charming BookTok archetypes, respectively, Nina’s presence opens up considerably fascinating concepts about motherhood and the darker aspect of home bliss. That mentioned, Seyfried’s shadowy character nonetheless feels as if she’s been ported over from a totally totally different movie, showing and disappearing all through her home as if she have been a ghost.
The Housemaid’s twist is a doozy, however it falls simply in need of being a deconstruction of tradwife values. That’s as a result of this tonally incongruous movie, in tending to bog-standard beats of its revenge story, glosses over the themes that tie Nina and Millie’s experiences.
As for the revenge components, the muddled staging of the climax doesn’t precisely make a meal of them, with the meant catharsis feeling generic and never in dialogue with Nina’s home struggles. One can solely think about what may need been had the filmmakers accomplished extra than simply nod to the fabric’s inherent camp worth, as evidenced by one working gag through which Andrew remarks that consuming orange juice is a privilege. If that they had, then possibly it wouldn’t be really easy to let this one-note thriller slip down the reminiscence gap.
Rating:
Solid: Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar, Michele Morrone, Elizabeth Perkins, Indiana Elle, Megan Ferguson, Ellen Tamaki Director: Paul Feig Screenwriter: Rebecca Sonnenshine Distributor: Lionsgate Operating Time: 131 min Score: R Yr: 2025
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