The Housemaid (2025)

	Directed by: Paul Feig	COUNTRY USA GENRE Psychological thriller NORWEGIAN TITLE The Housemaid RUNNING TIME 131 minutes
	Produced by: Todd Lieberman Laura Fischer Paul Feig
	Written by (based on the novel by Freida McFadden): Rebecca Sonnenshine

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Millie Calloway	Sydney Sweeney
Nina Winchester	Amanda Seyfried
Andrew Winchester	Brandon Sklenar
Enzo Accardi	Michele Morrone	½
Evelyn Winchester	Elizabeth Perkins	½
Cece Winchester	Indiana Elle	½

Review

The first half of this psychological thriller with some blatant supplemental eroticism has an alluring quality, balancing rather elegantly between the slick and the authentic. Sydney Sweeney plays Millie, a young woman out on parole who accepts a position as a live-in housemaid with the wealthy, seemingly perfect Winchester family, consisting of the charming and handsome Andrew (Brandon Sklenar), the somewhat erratic Nina (Amanda Seyfried), and their daughter Cece (Indiana Elle). Millie knows she must play her cards right to keep her job, especially when both Nina’s fuse and the leash she keeps her new housemaid on seem to become shorter and shorter.

Although The Housemaid never hides its genre affiliation, for large periods of its running time, it holds promise of something more – perhaps even a truly haunting tale of deep psychological complexity and subtlety. As the turning point kicks in around the halfway mark, you quickly realise that this won’t be the case. The filmmakers either don’t dare or don’t want to get too close to the truth. The budding romance is a fantasy, and the potentially explosive domestic abuse subtext remains a fabrication, albeit with hints of authenticity. Of course, it’s easier this way – so that the average moviegoer can enjoy an emotionally cushioned genre experience, and the actors can lean on stereotypes instead of fully exploring the conflicted natures of their characters. There's also the distinct possibility that they lack the necessary ability. By the end, we’re safely back in 1990s erotic thriller territory, with all that this entails, from the morbid fun to the disconnected silliness.