The Housemaid’ Review: Sydney Sweeney & Amanda Seyfried’s Twisted Thriller

At first, The Housemaid presents itself like a familiar setup. A young woman takes a live-in housekeeping job at a wealthy suburban home. The employer is polished, distant, and clearly in charge. You think you know where this is going.

That assumption doesn’t last long.

Directed by Paul Feig and adapted from Freida McFadden’s bestselling novel, the film leans hard into excess. It’s loud, glossy, and unapologetically dramatic. Yet for all its heightened style, The Housemaid knows exactly how to play with audience expectations—and how to quietly pull the rug out from under them.

Sydney Sweeney stars as Millie, a woman who arrives at the home of Nina Winchester, played by Amanda Seyfried with icy precision. Millie appears eager and harmless, almost too carefully put together. A small detail—a look, a pause—suggests there’s more beneath the surface. The film clocks it immediately, inviting viewers to question what’s real and what’s performance.

Have yourself a merry little crisis. Watch the final trailer for The Housemaid – in theaters THIS FRIDAY. Get tickets now: https://t.co/4MucuQVdsP pic.twitter.com/N2dNHWTvDK

— The Housemaid (@HousemaidMovie) December 15, 2025

A Familiar Genre With Sharper Teeth

For a few early scenes, The Housemaid pretends to belong to the old “interloper-from-hell” tradition. Think The Hand That Rocks the Cradle or Single White Female. Millie seems like the potential threat, the outsider with secrets. But the movie’s first real trick is refusing to move at the genre’s usual pace.

Instead of a slow burn, tension explodes quickly. Nina’s carefully maintained composure cracks in spectacular fashion. A minor domestic mishap turns into a plate-smashing meltdown. Accusations come fast and loud. At one point, you genuinely wonder why Millie doesn’t just walk out—until the film introduces a conveniently extreme reason she can’t.

Some plot mechanics stretch logic. The parole-related pressure keeping Millie in the job doesn’t quite add up. But the movie doesn’t ask to be taken literally. It operates in a heightened reality where emotional truth matters more than procedural accuracy, and once you accept that, the ride makes a certain wild sense.

Paul Feig, best known for comedy, directs this like a theatrical duel. He gives his two leads space to push their performances to operatic extremes. Sweeney plays Millie with warmth, desperation, and a quietly calculating edge, keeping the audience firmly on her side even as doubt creeps in. Seyfried, meanwhile, is startling. Her Nina is cold, volatile, and strangely hypnotic—a sharp turn from the sympathetic roles she’s often known for.

As the story unfolds, new assumptions form and then collapse. Nina’s husband Andrew, played by Brandon Sklenar, initially appears to be the one stable presence in the house. The film lets that idea settle just long enough before nudging it into uncomfortable territory. What looks like a familiar path toward an illicit affair or a predictable betrayal turns out to be something far messier.

The smartest move The Housemaid makes is knowing when to stop explaining itself. The twists arrive not just to shock, but to reframe what you thought you were watching. The film becomes less about who is “good” or “bad” and more about control, class, and the roles people perform to survive.

There’s a streak of deliberate cruelty running through the story. Characters manipulate and terrorize each other in boldly stylized ways. Yet it rarely feels empty or gratuitous. The behavior grows directly out of who these people are, and that connection keeps the audience invested rather than detached.

In a season dominated by prestige dramas and carefully calibrated award contenders, The Housemaid feels almost rebellious. It’s flashy, messy, and fully aware of its own excess. Not every narrative shortcut works, but the film’s confidence carries it forward.

By the end, it’s clear The Housemaid isn’t interested in subtlety or restraint. It wants to entertain, provoke, and keep viewers slightly off balance. And for a domestic thriller that openly toys with its own clichés, that confidence turns out to be its biggest strength.