The soapy throwback thriller The Housemaid is the most pleasant and infectious surprise of the crowded holiday movie season. A pitch perfect blend of suspense, camp, and crowd rousing high spots, The Housemaid is a franchise in the making that I for one can’t wait to see more of down the road. It’s the kind of movie that’s so satisfying that I find myself thinking back to some of its best moments and smiling or giggling. It’s the perfect antidote for heavier awards fare and bloated, inescapable studio blockbusters. Sure, it’s a popcorn movie at heart, but sometimes The Housemaid is exactly what the doctor ordered.
Millie (Sydney Sweeney) is in desperate need of a job. Recently released from prison and living out of her car, prospects are few and far between. In a last ditch effort for some stability, Millie applies for a live-in housekeeper job for a well to do family in Great Neck, Long Island. Millie has no illusions that she’ll land the gig with her trumped up resume, but to her own shock, wealthy socialite Nina Winchester (Amanda Seyfried) agrees to hire her. Millie is given a room in the attic, a new phone, access to the family credit card, and her life seems to be finally on track. Nina’s dashingly handsome, tech-bro husband, Andrew (Brandon Sklenar), treats Millie with kindness, but his daughter from a previous relationship, Cecilia (Indiana Elle), is stand-offish and skeptical. It isn’t long before Millie realizes her new employer is prone to spur of the moment, nuclear level mood swings and shocking acts of cruelty that come without provocation. Millie constantly walks on eggshells around Nina, but look a little closer at the situation, and all isn’t what it appears to be, with the employer harbouring as many secrets about their past as her employee.
For director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, Spy, The Heat), The Housemaid solidifies his status as a filmmaker capable of deftly riding the line between comedy and darkness; a quantum leap in quality from his already pretty decent and similarly themed Simple Favor films. Those movies now feel like test runs for The Housemaid’s main event, which is a much stronger film in terms of sustained tone, narrative consistency, and suspense. The script from Rebecca Sonnenshine flows effortlessly through the tonally shifting waters of novelist Freida McFadden’s bestselling source material, providing a solid base of escalation that Feig can build upon with his well calibrated cast. Feig and Sonnenshine understand that audiences have seen twist packed, melodramatic, somewhat erotic thrillers like The Housemaid before (particularly in the 90s), but they put forward the best possible version of such a film. Feig intrinsically understands that people go to see something like The Housemaid to have a deliciously dark and sinister lark, and the filmmaker responds with gleeful aplomb.
Feig, Shonnenshine, and the trio of leads are always willing to let the viewer into the process of making such a film instead of freezing them out and underestimating their intelligence. The Housemaid wants the viewer to pay attention to all the clues and bits of obvious foreshadowing that happen along the way, like lingering on a huge lighting fixture that dangles over a precarious looking spiral staircase, cutting away to reaction shots from the creepy groundskeeper (Michel Morrone) who knows more than he lets on, allowing Elizabeth Perkins to subtly devour the scenery as Andrew’s old money mother, or constantly coming back to fact that the window in Millie’s room won’t open. Feig knows the viewer will remember such details, so he leans into them instead of playing coy. The Housemaid doesn’t care all that much if a viewer guess the big, kinda obvious overall reveal, because it’s packing a bunch of smaller twists along the way that are less overt and more delightful. The Housemaid can guess that audiences (even those unfamiliar with McFadden’s series of novels) will be able to piece things together long before Millie does, but Feig delights them with the details and shifts. The Housemaid is a film that wants to hook the audience, even winning over those who might not be immediately convinced by its pulpy charms.
Sweeney anchors The Housemaid with a compelling, likably flawed heroine worth rooting for, even if the character doesn’t have the best instincts and can’t smell danger until it’s too late to turn back. It’s the least showy of the three main performances, but it provides Feig with the stability necessary to keep such elevated material from flying off the tracks. Sklenar, whose chiseled body doesn’t meet a tank top it doesn’t want to burst out of here, has a blast as Nina’s husband, playing perfectly off of both Sweeney and Seyfried. Morrone and young performer Elle deserve special mentions, as both are on hand to provide pitch-perfect menacing and telling looks that can speak more than any dialogue ever could.
But The Housemaid belongs to Seyfried, who gets a chance to star in two absolute (but wildly different) bangers at the cinema this season. Seyfried dives headlong into Nina’s volatility with Joan Crawford-esque precision and fire. Nina is dripping in evil intent punctuated by touching moments of clarity, all before effortlessly switching back into a character prone to flying off the handle at any second. While The Housemaid largely centres around Millie’s problems, it actually pivots around Nina’s secrets, with Seyfried providing the material with a great deal of the momentum necessary for the twists to take root. Seyfried and the rest of the cast know precisely the kind of movie they signed up for, and it’s a joy to watch them work.
The Housemaid is a classic mash-up of cautionary tales. Beware of rich people bearing gifts. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. No good can come from coveting someone else’s spouse. Honesty is the best policy. If someone takes you to Peter Luger, they probably want something from you. We all know these truths, but there’s great enjoyment to be had watching people squirm their way through a series of escalating, sometimes bloody situations. As a perpetually bending mindfuck, The Housemaid delivers what audiences expect, delighting in watching morally dubious people repeatedly gaslighting each other in a crazed game of oneupmanship. It provides its own sicko blend of holiday cheer.
The Housemaid opens in theatres everywhere on Friday, December 19, 2025.
