Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney in THE HOUSEMAID (2025)

I dunno, does Andrew really seem like a Barry Lyndon guy, or is he compensating because he is actually 21st century Yuppie Jack Torrance a la The Shinning?

(No relation to the 1960 Kim Ki-Young Korean film that you can watch from Scorsese's World Cinema Criterion box set, just to be clear)

(This is the key for the SPOILERS door, as requested 🚪)

Fun! And very well made on the whole by Paul Feig, who is extending on the kind of above average craftsmanship for twisty-bendy-pretzley melodrama thillers following on the heels of A Simple Favor with this adaptation that is one of Those books (3 million logs and counting on Goodreads, goodness). 

It is a story where you know things ain't right from early on and there are tidbits and things where it will be going (darn that window that won't open and the coziness and desolation of the room at the top of the house), and one could even see this moved to the 19th century Gothic romantic dramatic terrain and work (kind of).  And there is some good commentary on upper class enclosed bullshit society (the kind where gossip gets around quickly about the Crazy Neighbor Mommy, but it's not like they will stop socializing with her), and at its best The Housemaid finds a line to walk between its pulpier roots and as another Eat the Rich satirical piece. 

Amanda Seyfried is the major highlight here, with a character in Nina that gives her a lot of latitude in plating both crazy and (here is the spoiler that should give you a clue) deeply sympathetic as a victim of domestic abuse and abuses of other kinds.

Sweeney is pretty good, too, though it is more of a conventional role than what she showed through the rest of this year's (very underrated) performances in Christy and Eden. And Brandon Sklenar is good as well - certainly better here and in Drop than It Ends with Us - though I could see someone else (ie Cillian Murphy) really knocking the Brandon character out of the park in the last third.

Overall, The Housemaid is enjoyable and occasionally sexy (take it away, NSFW Reddit if you need to know more, but I digress), and how the story resolves itself is delightfully goofy and where you just have to roll with it.  I find it more fun in the first two thirds - when it is an unabashed soap opera - before it gets into the "ahhhh wait Rich Man is Evil" business, where it is still well made but becomes more sad and tragic for a while; you can tell this author read Gone Girl as it takes a narrative track from that almost to the point of Rip Off. 

But it does win you back once the full scope of Millie's history of crime and comeuppance comes into focus (often unhinged but yasss go Queen etc)....

(Her jeans may be blue, but her sandwich is red-blooded Deli excellence)

Though, one thing I wondered: why wouldn't she not only leave after she does *that* to Brandon, but why not just like... clean herself up or take a shower? Sure, have the sandwich while you are caked in blood, but just sitting around like that? Even for a movie that swims in the ocean of incredulity, up to and including that one police woman near the end, it just... I dunno.  And I would have liked more of the Groundskeeper, especially if we are calling back somewhat to thrillers of the 1990s like Hand That Rocks the Cradle, to be involved in the climax.