Paul Feig comes from “Freaks and Geeks,” but as he adds to his catalog, his work is getting more rote and forgettable despite having hooky premises and top-shelf actors. I see I gave “A Simple Favor” (2018) three and a half stars but I can’t remember a thing about it.
“The Housemaid” (2025) is perhaps close to that level, but I’m less patient with glossy mediocrity now. It boasts three good leads: new A-lister Sydney Sweeney; Amanda Seyfried, who I’ve liked since “Veronica Mars”; and the lesser-known, suave Brandon Sklenar. But instead of being a thoughtful psychological and social commentary – or alternatively, a pitch-black comedy that lectures with a wink – it’s an uncomfortable boomerang between reality and fantasy.
It has internal and external mystery elements, where we’re making guesses based on Rebecca Sonnenshine’s narrative (from Freida McFadden’s 2022 novel) and on what a modern movie might do in order to be cool. The titular Millie (Sweeney) gets a job in the mansion-like home of Nina and Andrew Winchester (Seyfried and Sklenar) and their daughter.
“The Housemaid” (2025)
Director: Paul Feig
Writers: Rebecca Sonnenshine (screenplay), Freida McFadden (novel)
Stars: Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar
For a while, it’s fun to put the pieces together – somewhat in lockstep with journal-writing Millie, but also we learn things the housemaid had been hiding from us about herself. Nina is the perfect boss one day and flinging plates around the kitchen the next. It turns out she’s crazy. And Andrew turns out to be quite sexy. What will happen next? The hook is undeniable.
Silly Millie
But instead of ending up deep in the tangled weeds of Millie’s feelings, loyalties and strategies, “The Housemaid” ventures into self-inflicted torture porn and over-the-top shouting matches that underline themes even a halfwit viewer has picked up. It makes weak attempts at cheek by inserting bad modern pop music.
In these ways, “The Housemaid” is a 21st century thriller, and against that competition, it’s passable. But I prefer how these movies used to be done. Consider “Suspicion,” not even an elite Hitchcock movie. The director creates a specifically weird fantastical tone; we know it’s not exactly reality, yet it’s saying something about potential, unspoken mistrust in a marriage.
Feig directs professionally. The movie is sometimes fun, it sometimes has shocks, it sometimes has tension. But he’s unable to find a consistently otherworldly tone to fit the twisty narrative. As such, we starkly see that the characters are geniuses when necessary and idiots when necessary.
Some plot points and character behaviors (like why the victim can’t escape the situation) are meticulously constructed to be plausible, and other aspects of reality (such as how the cops would approach evidence) are thrown out the window.
“The Housemaid” can’t break free of being throwaway schlock, which might be more palatable if it reveled in being schlock, and if it could get in and out in 100 minutes. Feig needs 131 minutes to tell a story he can’t convince me he believes in.