Film Review: The Housemaid

Welcome back to the blog readers. As you could probably tell by now, I am not the biggest fan of book-to-screen adaptations because they normally can never capture the same magic that the book does. Now I am no reader, but I can tell based on the reactions that I see from people that have read the source material. And of course I make my own judgment, but what would that judgment entail for this book-to-screen adaptation? Stick around to find out.

The Housemaid was directed by Paul Feig from a screenplay by Rebecca Sonnenshine, based on the novel The Housemaid by Freida McFadden. The film stars Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar, Michele Monroe, and Elizabeth Perkins. In the film, a woman with a checkered past is hired to be a housemaid for a seemingly perfect wealthy family, but chaos erupts when the family's dark secrets come to light.

I do love me a good thriller from time to time, because they can really be an escape from the cold and scary world outside (especially nowadays). So there is some benefit in getting some solace in watching other people overcome adversity or whatever it is they do in thrillers. I was not really looking forward to this film since I am starting to not like Sydney Sweeney, and this film is honestly proof of that. While I did love the performances of Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar and the twists and turns, Sweeney's performance and the runtime are things I really could not get on board with.

I want to start by talking about the performance of Amanda Seyfried. Seyfried is an Academy Award nominee, and a Golden Globe and Emmy winner, alongside being in classics like Mean Girls (2004) and Mamma Mia! (2008). But taking on the role of Nina Winchester was going to be a Herculean task in of itself. And she absolutely nails the character, flawlessly even. Everything from the manic energy that she brings to most of this performance to even the calmer moments that we see from Nina makes this a multi-dimensional performance for the ages. And, she is even getting award consideration for her film The Testament of Ann Lee (2025).

The final performance that I want to praise is that of Brandon Sklenar. Ever since I saw him in Drop (2025), I have been vehemently agreed with the people who believe he will be James Gunn's Batman. And I will not lie to you now, the only thing I thought whenever I saw him in this film was, "This guy is Batman." And not only could he be Batman, he could do anything, because he was damn brilliant as the character of Andrew Winchester. He comes off as a Bruce Wayne-type comforting character with a charisma about him, but about halfway through we see a character shift. This shift allows Sklenar to play in a sandbox he has never played in before, and I was riveted the entire damn time.

For the first time ever on this blog, I am going to talk about a performance I both did and did not like in the same blog, and the unlucky recipient of the performance I did not like in this film belongs to the overexposed Sydney Sweeney. This is the sixth project she has appeared in this year, and that does not even include the American Eagle controversy. But Sweeney was horribly miscast in this film. She could not pull off the emotion and the passion that is required for a role like this. The complexity of the role was too tall a task for Sweeney, and I have some real questions about her abilities as an actor after seeing her excel in only one role thus far.

There is one more thing I want to praise in this film, and that would be the twists and turns that we get in this film, and that would go hand-in-hand with the script. Rebecca Sonnenshine is the scribe to our world, and I am familiar with her work since she has worked on The Boys (2019-26) (specifically the episodes "Proper Preparation and Planning" and "What I Know"). I really enjoyed getting to see her tendencies reemerge while navigating us through this crazy saga. Only she is able to really get enjoyment out of the viewer when things reveal themselves and then later get flipped on their heads in a crazy twist of fate kind of way. I do hope she gets more high-profile work because she could really benefit from her strengths being highlighted.

And I want to end this review by talking about the runtime and pacing of the film. There are people who enjoy films being short, or who enjoy them being long, but I am of the belief that every film has a runtime that is ideal for it. But the major problem with this film is that we spend way too much time on exposition. This film runs for 2 hours and 11 minutes (or 131 minutes), and it feels like 20 minutes too long. Like I mentioned, we spend way too much time setting things up and not enough time letting these things play out and marinate. There could have been some scenes that could have been left on the cutting room floor and it would have made the film's pace run a lot more smoothly.

In conclusion, The Housemaid is a well-acted and well-written but disjointed look at power and a family dynamic that has been broken from the beginning. Thank you all for reading, and I will see you for the next post.