The Housemaid
“Just what kind of junk does this want to be?” It’s a question that may trouble you for some time in Paul Feig’s The Housemaid, which arrives semi-formed as a quarter gossipy airport paperback about a crazy lady in a mansion in the woods, a quarter an Eat the Rich satirical takedown, and halfway to a goopy Hallmark romance replete with wince-inducing needledrops (Lana del Rey, you’re up!). It’s not that the set-up lacks promise: Millie (Sydney Sweeney), a drifter seeking work after a ten-year prison stint, lands the seemingly plum gig of live-in housemaid to the ultra-wealthy Winchesters (Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar), before finding herself embroiled in her hyper-neurotic employers’ downward mental spiral, implicated by Seyfried’s Nina in seemingly every little thing that could be wrong in her life. The issue is that Feig’s movie is not unlike Nina’s supersized house: bloated at 131 minutes, it’s overloaded with empty space it doesn’t need, leaving it ample time to dilly dally without ploughing full steam ahead into the grand melodramatics that ought to be fuelling it.
Naturally, there are twists in store, but The Housemaid (adapting Freida McFadden’s novel) pays the price of delayed gratification, namely that what the source of interest is before the veil is lifted becomes uncertain. Are we to root for Sklenar’s hunky tech bro to sweep Millie off her feet, indulging an opulent brain-rot fantasy of a sensitive rich guy – one who, in his own words, really wants nothing more than to be a husband and father – swooping in to solve all problems? This would require much more smouldering chemistry than Sklenar and Sweeney can manage, with the former left to generically brood while the latter approaches this supposedly hardscrabble ex-con with the energy of a bored vlogger mildly peeved over the cancellation of her flight. Is it relative suspense around Millie’s mysterious criminal past, something the movie itself never musters much interest in? Is it the drive to see all of Nina’s beautiful, meaningless stuff go up in cathartic flames? One can’t imagine it from a film, much too seduced by all the perfume commercial aesthetics of the Winchester lifestyle to work up much satirical scorn for it.
There’s an inertia in much of The Housemaid that leaves one nostalgic for the breezy star-driven comedies that made Feig’s name (Bridesmaids and Spy among them). With the studio comedy going the way of the dodo, the director has pivoted to the 90s-style twisty potboiler, another genre once commonplace and now regarded as charmingly antiquated, or worse yet, as streaming fodder unfit for movie theatres. This new effort is making a not unwelcome bid for their return as holiday season counter-programming, but for much too long, the results oddly aren’t much fun.
Luckily, the feature knows what good value Seyfried is, and it catches a second wind when it finally hands her the steering wheel. From the word go, the actress has a better handle on the overripe, near-camp Feig is reaching for than anything around her, and as Nina is pushed to the forefront, the film locates the welcome nasty streak it’s been missing. The result is a pulp outfit Feig’s movie wears with much greater ease, its tongue finally finding its way to the centre of its cheek and staying there. Whether it arrives too late to satisfy may be decided in the eyes of its beholders.
Ultimately, the director of A Simple Favour’s latest twisty romp feels curiously leaden for too much of its overextended runtime, but a third act turnaround driven by a game Amanda Seyfried performance delivers on much of the bang for your buck that was promised.
Thomas Messner
The Housemaid is released nationwide on 26th December 2025.
Watch the trailer for The Housemaid here:
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