Director: Paul Feig
Writers: Rebecca Sonnenshine, Freida McFadden
Stars: Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar
Synopsis: A struggling woman is happy to start over as a housemaid for an affluent, elite couple.
If you recall Paul Feig’s straight to streaming sequel Another Simple Favor this year (and I’m hoping you don’t because it represents in my mind his nadir) you’re probably aware that “female empowerment” in his more recent work seems to be two women possibly poised to do one another damage. Because as long as the outfits, the husbands, and the houses are impressive women putting other women in danger is a girl boss move.
Paul Feig isn’t entirely to blame for the ludicrous and shabby The Housemaid as it’s an adaptation in the first of a series written by (or perhaps not entirely, but that’s a different story) Freida McFadden and originally published as an e-book in 2022. The publisher, Bookoutre, is owned by a former Harlequin and Mills & Boon marketing executive. The model is volume output which acts as a lucrative testing ground for titles to go viral and then they’re sold or licensed to paperback publishers and some also get studio options. A similar low-risk, high-payout of the Colleen Hoover self-publishing model. I’ve “read” The Housemaid and it’s twisty (if you aren’t paying attention) and mostly repellent trash that begs you to suspend disbelief somewhere so high that lack of oxygen impedes brain function; which is also where you need to be for the movie to make a lick of sense.
The screenplay adapted by Rebecca Sonnenshine at the very least ditches most of Millie’s (Sydney Sweeney) caustic narration and doesn’t fat and age shame Nina Winchester (played by Amanda Seyfried as thin and young) the “mad mommy” of Long Island who employs the desperate Millie as her live-in housekeeper/babysitter/cook. Nina is married to Andrew (Brendan Skelnar), a generationally wealthy tech business owner who spends a lot of time in a white singlet, just because he’s shaped like Brandon Skelnar.
Millie was living in her car and desperately needs to keep her job in the Winchester home regardless of whatever increasingly bizarre gaslighting game Nina seems to be playing and the general coldness of Cecelia (Indiana Elle), Nina’s ballet obsessed seven-year-old. Millie will put up with her tiny attic room with an outside lock and locked window. She will put up being treated like she’s another species by the PTA mommies who also don’t much care for Nina because she doesn’t “deserve” Hot Saint Andrew, who charitably and calmly puts up with Nina’s diagnosed psychotic behavior and is a great dad to a child that isn’t biologically his.
Of course, there are dark secrets on both Millie and the Winchester’s sides. Very little is as it seems which Millie finds out at a punishing (for the audience) slow pace. Nina’s behavior gets more unhinged and cruel which pushes Millie and Andrew into each other’s trés sexy arms (yes, there is Sweeney boob for those who want to know, which I guess will be the majority of the straight male audience and to even things out a little there is Sklenar butt). Millie also seems unable to follow basic “dress code” for a housekeeper as Andrew’s cold and withholding mother (Elizabeth Perkins) scolds Nina about. Evelyn Winchester also reminds her son that not wearing a tie on the weekend is not quite up to standard.
However, as three poorly reviewed movie releases proved this year, Sydney Sweeney and box office dress code includes low cut tops and peek-a-boo belly button. I’m not at all a prude and the very tame titillation The Housemaid offers is mostly objectionable because its erotic value is aggressively ordinary but somehow, it’s sold as very naughty indeed.
Standards are very important to the Winchester family. Standards and appearances are important to all the monied Long Islanders which is why Andrew is the perfect gentleman on all occasions, and knows what makes a tasteful house, table, wife. It’s trad-wife territory, dressed in varying shades of cream, ivory, and ironclad pre-nups. A wonderland that’s so impressive that it could be a doll’s house (not a reference to Ibsen, sadly) and Andrew has ensured it is in play size for CeCe.
The Housemaid is a throwback to a simpler time when thrillers tended to include Michael Douglas getting tangled up with some “disturbed” but sexually available woman who tended to prove that “bitches be crazy” and maybe feminism was a bad idea. Despite the movie playing the trope out in a different way, it spends far too much time using it and eventually gets to the “bitches be, and cause, crazy” conclusion despite it thinking it’s subverting it.
One aspect of the movie at least does deliver in terms of the more viscerally unsettling, and I guess there could be a cathartic experience for some audience members to get to the “good for her,” bit. For my part, by that stage, I was wondering about light fixtures clashing with wallpaper and considering that maybe what the movie was missing was a surprise twin or triplet to put the camp into a movie that decided Elizabeth Perkins’ ice toned hairstyle was an important behavioural clue.
The most positive compliment I can give The Housemaid is that it’s not designed to be a “second screen” movie. It’s heavy handed (Millie and Andrew watch old episodes of Family Feud, tickets are booked for a musical titled Showdown), and it expends too much time on the set-up, but it drops a lot of clues that come into play later down the line, despite the “that’s oddly convenient that this person is related to someone mentioned earlier and they just happen to be precisely where they need to be despite never being around for the previous four years.”
Paul Feig has made worse movies, the non-starter that was the YA novel adaptation The School for Good and Evil (I vaguely remember Cate Blanchett possibly playing a quill), last year’s action/comedy Jackpot!, my camp radar meltdown, Another Simple Favor He’s also made the classic comedy favorites fronted by women such as Bridesmaids and Spy (thank you, Rose Byrne). Housemaid proves he still gets the gist of trash-tastic, but he requires a guiding hand (and fabulous costume designer) to ensure he’s winking at the audience. Housemaid is neither serious enough, nor frivolous enough to solve its numerous issues with tone. Housemaid commits to little, but at least everyone working on the movie were committed to keeping a rogue boom mic appearing at least three times in a scene. So, big ups there, team.
