Paul Feig's second foray into gorgeously designed trash this year after Another Simple Favor thankfully hues much closer to that film's downright delicious predecessor. The Housemaid, based on the novel of the same name by Freida McFadden, is a wily movie full to the brim with twists, and built on two perfectly calibrated performances for this kind of airport trash (affectionate if not entirely complimentary).
Unfortunately neither of those two performances come from Sydney Sweeney as down on her luck protagonist Millie, who lands a live-in job as a housemaid. Sweeney isn't bad here, she never detracts or distracts from what's working and she manages to sell some fun one-liners every so often, but mostly she's just the vehicle for the excitement around her.
The two performances worth celebrating come from the husband and wife who have welcomed Millie into their home. Amanda Seyfried is phenomenal as housewife Nina who only wears various shades of white and initially seems kind, only to turn controlling and gaslighting a day after Millie has moved in. The way Seyfried holds her face as she anticipates her next cruelty somehow builds tension while also conveying how much fun the actor is having being bad.
Brandon Sklenar as Andrew, the stereotypically nice husband to the "crazy" wife, uses his size and small adjustments to his voice to shift between ridiculously hot (a frequently worn wifebeater lets his giant arms do a lot of this work), comforting, and potentially dangerous; it's a remarkable piece of acting that makes him steal what should be Sweeney's spotlight in the film.
The production design gets a spotlight of its own, of course, and while The Housemaid doesn't have nearly the same kind of jaw-dropping costumes as either Simple Favor movie, the home where the majority of the action takes place is given a good amount of attention. Nina's tour during Millie's interview for the job has the camera roving around the home drinking in the perfectly placed finery, the home theater in the basement, and the well-kept grounds. Oh, there's also the attic room with a deadbolt lock only accessible from the outside, where Millie will live, and a staircase Nina jokes will kill her some day.
The Housemaid does a lot of this kind of telegraphing, inviting viewers into the fun before the twists and reveals arrive. At some point, though, possibly around the time we're treated to an extended expository flashback that twists the narrative structure a bit too much, plot becomes secondary to pure thrills.
At base level, The Housemaid offers up a bevy of images of its three leads in various states of undress and a surprising amount of genuinely nasty violence, but Feig makes the whole thing more fun and more upsetting by leaning hard into genre film staples. Jump scares, dark hallways, thunder and lightning, and dramatic irony all come together to make the sex and violence that much more theatrical, exciting, and delightful.
There are some ideas running through the film too, but these mostly serve to make the horror more horrifying and the retribution more satisfying rather than elucidating or interrogating any new thematic ground.
The Housemaid is a crowdpleaser through and through. Every aspect of it exists to elicit the kind of smiling "fucked up right?" Millie gets from another member of the help after a gossip session. While not every aspect is entirely successful, The Housemaid's big swings at fucked-up fun land far more than they miss.
The film opens Friday, December 19, only in movie theaters, via Lionsgate. Visit their official site for locations, showtimes, and ticket information.