‘The Housemaid’ Review: Going From Booktok to Big Screen Saps Thriller of Sexiness and Fun [D]

There was a time when mid-budget, mid-grade thrillers kept movie theaters in business, before the multiplexes were taken over by an uneven mix of big IP movies and quiet awards dramas. As our viewing habits shift, it’s now far more common for pulpy, standalone movies to launch directly on streaming and become part of the content ether. It is increasingly rare, indeed, that a film like The Housemaid should find its way to a theater near you, though with the price of tickets these days, you might be happier staying home and finding something on the Roku.

The Housemaid was first a best-selling novel by Freida McFadden, a doctor who built a writing career for herself with a collection of self-published novels and short stories that quickly put her into the BookTok pop scene. The film adaptation, directed by Paul Feig (Bridesmaids) and written by Rebecca Sonnenshine (The Boys, The Vampire Diaries), is the first adaptation of one of McFadden’s works.

Sydney Sweeney stars as Millie, a recently paroled felon who is desperately seeking work when she interviews for a live-in position with the Winchesters in a New York suburb. On the surface, everything seems perfect. Nina (Amanda Seyfried) is warm and kind. The house is the biggest, most beautiful in the neighborhood, with immaculate gardens kept by a hot Italian gardener, inviting interior design with big, comfy couches and a dreamy kitchen. Even the attic bedroom seems quaint and cozy to Millie, who has been living in her car for the past month. But the cracks in the facade begin to show from her first day. Something is off about Nina Winchester and Millie might be in danger.

But the real danger here is boredom. Just as Millie knows something is off with her sweet new job, we the audience can sense something is off from the very first scene. Millie recently lost a job and desperately needs to find another one before she gets sent back to prison to finish the remaining five years on her sentence. We’re told this more than once. Yet we never feel that sense of desperation and the looming threat of prison, no matter how many times we are reminded that this is what’s at stake. When Nina starts screaming at Millie and ripping apart her own kitchen on the first morning, there is no sense of why the young parolee would rather stay and put up with this than don another orange jumpsuit, beyond Nina’s husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar) being hot and our general knowledge that prison sucks.

Paul Feig, who made his mark with brilliant comedies including Bridesmaids, Spy, and Ghostbusters, has struggled in recent years to reach the heights of a decade ago. The Housemaid, for all the story’s flaws, seemed tailor-made for the blend of sexy and silly that made A Simple Favor so good. Unfortunately, Feig can’t bring that sense of intrigue and fun into The Housemaid, a film that lacks any real thrills or mystery. The humor, when it’s there, seems almost entirely accidental and the psychological elements fall flat in what is ultimately a checklist of Lifetime movie tropes.

Hot husband with vaguely generic tech job? Check. Gaggle of PTA moms who randomly drop bits of mysterious backstory? Check. A judgmental eight-year-old daughter; a misunderstanding about picking up said daughter from ballet class; a flirty, late-night TV watching session between maid and hot husband? Check, check, check.

McFadden’s novel, despite its popularity, wasn’t particularly well written or thrilling either, but this adaptation somehow manages to strip away the things that made the book a page-turner. Characters who mattered to the story are reduced to undeveloped cameos, specifically Enzo the gardener (Michele Morrone) and Andrew’s mother Evelyn (Elizabeth Perkins). The story also shifts from spring and summer to winter, leading to a flurry of unasked questions like, why does the gardener spend so much time working in a snow-covered yard?

The performances from our three leads match the energy with which they’re written. Sydney Sweeney plays Millie as a slack-jawed girl who gives no thought to anything beyond the task at hand. She isn’t hardened by her ten years in prison or the crime that sent her there; she has no apparent emotions regarding her estrangement from her parents and doesn’t seem to care that she has no friends and no direction in life. One early scene with her parole officer (Sarah Cooper) reveals little of what motivates Millie, and she is almost confused that she would even be asked about her plans for the future. Sweeney delivers the lines on the page but never gives a sense that there is much going on beneath the surface.

Amanda Seyfried might be the only one who understands the movie she’s in as she brings Nina to life. She’s having a lot of fun flipping from sweet and caring to unhinged. If there is a sense of desperation to be found in this movie, it is in Seyfried’s efforts to not take this story so seriously. Whether brandishing a shard of glass in her bleeding hand, popping up unexpectedly behind Millie, or talking about the PTA moms and their gossip about her time in an institution, Seyfried relishes the goofiness of the story and keeps it remotely watchable.

For a movie that could have been an entertaining, twisty thriller, it winds up being laughable and eye-rolling instead. Viewers should also be warned that there is a rather graphic and wholly unnecessary depiction of rape, as well as a gruesome scene of self-harm. It is especially disappointing that these scenes would find their way into a movie directed by Feig, who has been known for making empowering movies about women. The Housemaid is a bland insult to the collective intelligence of its target audience, only occasionally tiptoeing near the kind of movie it could and should have been.

Grade: D

Lionsgate will release The Housemaid only in theaters on December 19.