Courtney Howard // Film Critic
THE HOUSEMAID
Rated R, 2 hours and 11 minutes
Directed by: Paul Feig
Starring: Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar, Elizabeth Perkins, Michele Morrone, Indiana Elle
Finally a good movie has been made out of a BookTok sensation. Director Paul Feig and writer Rebecca Sonnenshine have shrewdly adapted author Freida McFadden’s monster hit THE HOUSEMAID into a deliciously unhinged cinematic page turner. The delightfully tawdry tale about a 20-something Woman with A Past who takes a job as a live-in maid for an upper-crust family plays like a mix between THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA (capturing the stresses of working under a demanding boss), GONE GIRL (capturing a whip-smart narrative POV switch) and a rebellious, subversive dash of JANE EYRE (capturing, well, redacted, lest I spoil anything). Replete with steamy, suspenseful scenarios and chock full of unexpected twists, it has everything audiences could ever want in a contemporary psycho-thriller.
Millie Calloway (Sydney Sweeney) is desperate for a job – any job. So much so, she’ll sport ugly glasses to an interview to appear smart and dowdy, or as mousy as someone who looks like Sweeney could ever look. She’s barely scraping by, sleeping in her car in a motel parking lot, when she gets the call that Nina Winchester (Amanda Seyfried) wants to hire her to help around the house. Millie is to do organizing, light cleaning and cooking for Nina, her wealthy, hot hubby Andrew (Brandon Sklenar) and their young daughter Cecilia (Indiana Elle). As their manse is in perfect condition when she first meets Nina, and since Nina kindly offers her $20 for her time, Millie agrees to the position. However, appearances aren’t at all what they seem.
Things begin to go wrong for Millie upon her arrival. When she attempts to drive onto the gated property, she’s not met with any enthusiasm, and gets the stink eye from creepy caretaker Enzo (Michele Morrone). She enters the home to find it now in complete and utter disarray. She also experiences an awkward meet-cute with Andrew and Cecilia, and soon thereafter fails to impress Andrew’s icy mother Evelyn (Elizabeth Perkins). Millie endures a series of escalating difficulties trying to keep her bonkers boss satisfied, to very little reward outside of a clothing donation (in a scene that will have engaged audiences screaming “It’s a trap” like Admiral Ackbar). As the job demands increase due to Nina’s crumbling sanity, Millie clings to the olive branch (heh, heh, heh) Andrew offers her. Still, nothing would ever prepare her for what lays ahead on this sordid journey.
A kissing cousin to Feig’s other book-to-screen adaptation A SIMPLE FAVOR in its gorgeous gloss and cheeky tone, THE HOUSEMAID is a flawless marriage of style, sophistication and silliness, reflecting the director’s innate skill at making campy (not a dirty word in this house!) elements work to their greatest abilities, allowing a darkly comedic undertone to form. The manner in which he, Sonnenshine and the troupe ratchet up tension and intrigue is notable, helping us to better buy into a few contrivances they’re selling (like anything stemming from Millie’s past infractions with men not informing her current ones). We eagerly wait for the on-screen madness to go gonzo in its payoff – and boy does it, in the best way possible. There’s bite to the story’s stinging sentiments about the feminine identity and toxic masculinity, in addition to its overall thematic grandeur centered on trust, betrayal and suburban disillusionment. Plus, the town’s bitchy gossips – both nannies and Nina’s “cunty” cabal – help serve as an amusing way to deliver exposition without dragging down momentum, slotting right into the lunacy.
Production designer Elizabeth Jones and art director Naomi Munro’s work mirrors the inner workings of the mystery. Hitchcock-inspired turns within the characters – surging with an undercurrent of commentary on mischievous, devious human behavior – also extend to the Winchester house, from its multi-level spiral staircase to its pristine, nouveau-gothic white marbled and shiplapped sanctuaries. Cecilia’s dollhouse is an obvious metaphor for the ensuing hijinks. The red snake wallpaper that hangs in the master bathroom is RepTV coded, foreshadowing a perfectly placed needle drop on Taylor Swift’s “I Did Something Bad.”
Cinematographer John Schwartzman’s color palette shifts from warm to cool when situations sour, gifting the aesthetics with a noir-ish appeal. He captures the claustrophobic spaces with impressive dexterity, losing the luster on the polished environments and guiding the power dynamics with low-angled framing. Longtime collaborator Renee Ehrlich Kalfus’s costume design is impeccable, as always. Nina’s luxurious mono-cream-atic wardrobe and Millie’s casual mall chic encapsulate the gals’ personas in tactile fabric form even before they speak.
Seyfried delivers the goods. Between this and her fearless performance in THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE, she’s giving us all the colors of her rainbow this month in cinemas. It’s fun to see her go a little goofy, demented and maniacal, playing Nina’s fluctuating, extreme emotions big and broad, while honing in on the nuanced vulnerability and palpable rage during quieter segments. Sweeney’s got more than a few standout lines that make us chuckle. Her delivery of “I fucking love gravy” is sure to get the crowd giggling. Not everyone can turn unfailing naiveté into an indomitable strength, but she does. Together, the pair demonstrate a firm grasp of the understated outlandishness at play, establishing a punchy repartee and caustic dynamic. Sklenar seems far more enlivened by his role here than in his previous BookTok flop, IT ENDS WITH US, digging into a guarded duality driven by narcissistic perfectionism.
Along the lines of classic female-centric 90s thrillers like SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY, SINGLE WHITE FEMALE and THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE, THE HOUSEMAID is what fans of this genre (and, tangentially, defenders of BARRY LYNDON) have been yearning to see for years. It serves as the perfect antidote to awards season stuffiness. Though it may require our suspension of disbelief to kick in a few times, it’s wildly pleasurable. Since there are more books in the series, we can only hope there will be more of these films in our lives.
Grade: B+
THE HOUSEMAID opens on December 19.
