The Housemaid (2025)
Paul Feig’s The Housemaid is something you don’t see much anymore: a domestic thriller that actually remembers what genre means. Not just the trappings, but the whole contract between filmmaker and audience. Based on Freida McFadden’s novel (which apparently did rather well on BookTok, if you’re keeping track of such things), the film sits in that odd space where glossy production values meet genuinely uncomfortable psychological territory. It winks at you, sure. But it doesn’t collapse into pure camp. That takes discipline.
Sydney Sweeney plays Millie Calloway, who needs work badly enough to accept a live-in housemaid position with the Winchester family. Her past involves crime, though the film doles out details sparingly. Nina Winchester, her new employer, seems perfect during the interview. Lovely home, lovely charcuterie board, lovely everything. Amanda Seyfried plays Nina, and within about fifteen minutes of Millie actually moving in, that loveliness evaporates. Nina swings between charm and absolute psychological warfare, often within the same scene. Her husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar) mostly stands around looking uncomfortable, which somehow feels more sinister than if he were actively menacing. The question of who’s manipulating whom gets harder to answer as things progress. There are twists. Multiple twists. Whether that’s good news or bad depends on your tolerance for narrative acrobatics.
Feig knows what he’s doing here, which helps considerably. The Winchester mansion works as more than just set dressing. All that glass and empty space, the way Millie’s attic room feels like a deliberate afterthought compared to the cathedral-like spaces she cleans… you don’t need anyone explaining class dynamics when the architecture’s already doing that work. The camera understands this. So does the production design.
Seyfried gives the film its most interesting performance, I think. Nina could easily become a collection of mood swings looking for a character, but Seyfried finds the through-line. You believe this person exists, even when she’s throwing plates or shifting from tears to accusations in the space of a breath. That’s harder to pull off than it looks. Sweeney matches her well, playing Millie’s survival instincts without tipping into obvious manipulation or victimhood. Both women keep you guessing about what they’re actually thinking, which seems rather the point.
The problem, if you want to call it that, comes from the film’s commitment to piling on revelations. Some work beautifully. Others stretch credulity past its breaking point. The middle section especially lingers in familiar “abusive employer” territory when you rather wish it would get on with things. And yes, the final act requires you to accept certain improbabilities about human behaviour and what people can actually get away with in suburban New Jersey. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.
But I suspect Feig knows exactly what he’s doing with these excesses. The Housemaid positions itself as a deliberate throwback to 1990s erotic thrillers, and those films weren’t exactly known for restraint. The difference is that this one demonstrates some self-awareness about its own ridiculousness without entirely surrendering to it. Theodore Shapiro’s score helps, knowing when to amp things up and when silence serves better.
What I found most interesting, though, is how the film handles its power dynamics. Nobody here occupies pure moral high ground. Everyone’s desperate or controlling or both, often simultaneously. The script doesn’t moralise about this, just presents it as fact: when survival depends on performing a role convincingly, exploitation becomes almost structural. That this observation emerges through entertainment rather than lecture suggests more thought went into the screenplay than you might initially credit.
Look, The Housemaid isn’t reinventing anything. But it executes familiar genre moves with enough intelligence and craft to justify its existence. The performances land, the look is polished, and it’s twisted enough to earn its twists (well, most of them). Four stars for a film that delivers on its promises without insulting your intelligence in the process. Sometimes that’s enough.