The Housemaid (2025) * * *

 

 

Directed by:  Paul Feig

Starring:  Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar, Elizabeth Perkins, Indiana Elle, Michele Morrone

The Housemaid's trailer may remind viewers of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992), in which a sinister housemaid infiltrates a suburban family for her own nefarious reasons.  Not to spoil anything, but this is thankfully not the case, and in fact Millie (Sweeney) accepts the live-in housemaid position for a wealthy Long Island family because she lives in her car and needs a job and residence in order to stay on parole.  She spends a good portion of the movie trying to go with the flow while dealing with the temperamental Nina (Seyfried), who abuses and gaslights Millie because she's rumored to have spent time in a mental institution.  We see this is likely true, but then The Housemaid flips the switch and makes the villain someone else entirely, although not exactly surprisingly.

The poor guy who referees the tug-of-war between Nina and Millie is Nina's husband Andrew (Sklenar), who is saintly in his dealings with his erratic wife.  He's perfect in every way, but we know someone like him is too good to be true.  No one can be this patient and forgiving unless he's hiding a darker side.  The Housemaid's structure and lengthy running time allow us to deduce that all is not well with either Nina or Andrew.  Their perfect home is just the setting for turmoil which Millie finds herself in the middle of.  But Millie is not immune to troubles either, as we learn.

Most of the fun we relish in The Housemaid is contained in its changing viewpoint and the suspense in building to the inevitable outcome.  Sweeney is deferential and quiet because she needs the job and Nina knows it; allowing her to use Millie to her advantage.  What is Nina's endgame?  Or Andrew's, aside from becoming intimate with the help?  Millie goes along to get along until she is placed in a deadly situation in which she has to revert to her violent past.  Is the ending too neat and frankly unbelievable?  Yes, but part of the fun of Paul Feig's The Housemaid is getting to that point.  By then, we're invested and we can forgive it its trespasses.