The Housemaid (2025) Lionsgate/Suspense-Thriller RT: 131 minutes Rated R (strong/bloody violent content, sexual assault, sexual content, nudity, language) Director: Paul Feig Screenplay: Rebecca Sonnenshine Music: Theodore Shapiro Cinematography: John Schwartzman Release date: December 19, 2025 (US) Cast: Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar, Michele Monroe, Elizabeth Perkins, Indiana Elle, Ellen Tamaki, Megan Ferguson, Amanda Joy Erickson, Alaina Surgener, Sarah Cooper, Alexandra Seal.
Rating: ***
If movies have taught us anything, it’s that there’s no such thing as a normal wealthy family. They’re always hiding some dark secret beneath their veneer of perfection. Also, it’s always a have-not that gets pulled into whatever’s going on. Notice I didn’t say innocent. That’s by design.
The new thriller The Housemaid, an adaptation of the best seller by Freida McFadden, pulls us and its protagonist Millie (Sweeney, Anyone but You) into the immaculate Long Island home of the Winchester family. Everything looks picture perfect when lady of the house Nina (Seyfried, Mamma Mia 1 & 2) interviews Millie for a live-in housemaid position. Millie, unemployed and living in her car, thinks it’s the answer to her prayers when Nina offers her the job. It’s not.
It takes less than 24 hours for the cracks in the façade to show. The next morning, Nina has an epic meltdown because she can’t find her notes for a speech she’s supposed to make at a PTA meeting. She angrily accuses Millie of throwing them away. This is just the start of the wild, increasingly out-of-control ride (i.e. mood swings, lies, verbal abuse and mind games). It becomes clear that Nina has a few mental health issues.
The only one capable of bringing Nina back to something resembling rationality is her husband Andrew (Sklenar, It Ends with Us), a handsome and charming sort envied by all the other Stepford wives. He’s the kind of person who’s had it easy all his life. He gets by on his looks and that million-dollar smile. He has a wandering eye and soon sets his sights on Millie. She can hardly believe her luck. The only thing she has to fear is Nina’s wrath. Or is it?
The Winchesters aren’t the only ones hiding something. Millie is not who she claims to be, a college grad who recently moved back to the city. She’s a girl with a troubled past. She’s currently on parole and must keep this job if she doesn’t want to get sent back to prison. This means suffering all of Nina’s s*** with a smile. Naturally, she doesn’t share this bit of info with her employers. Could she possibly be dangerous?
It initially seemed odd to me that Paul Feig directed The Housemaid. He’s mainly known for outrageous comedies like Bridesmaids (2011), The Heat (2013) and Spy (2015). Then I remembered he also did A Simple Favor (2018), a nifty little comedy caper starring Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively. He took what could have been an ordinary, run of the mill mystery-thriller and infused it with a dark sense of humor turning it into something quite out of the ordinary. He doesn’t quite repeat the same feat with The Housemaid. It’s lurid fun, but it doesn’t reach the trashy, tawdry heights one would hope for given the setting and characters.
To his credit, Feig shows that he still has a gift for bringing the right actresses together. Sweeney and Seyfried have decent chemistry even though the latter easily eclipses the former with her delightfully unhinged performance. Calling her character “chemically imbalanced” would be an understatement. Nina is a crazy bitch, plain and simple. Sweeney downplays it until the finale when she goes from deviously meek to mighty. It’s the right way to play the role. Sklenar does a pretty good job as a Mr. Nice Guy, bland and seemingly harmless until he’s not.
The other MVP in The Housemaid gets barely any screen time at all. Elizabeth Perkins (About Last Night) plays Andrew’s mother, a dead ringer for Cruella de Vil with her white hair and blood-red lipstick. She’s a pretentious, superficial type who truly believes her son can do no wrong except when it comes to choosing a wife. In her few scenes, she leans into the camp like Faye Dunaway. I wish she had been around more.
The Housemaid reminds me of a vintage-era Brian De Palma thriller minus the camera trickery. It’s compelling throughout with a few nifty twists that you may or may not see coming. It brings to mind other classics that I won’t name because of my rule about plot spoilers. You can probably figure them out yourself. But don’t take that to mean The Housemaid is wholly unoriginal or tired in any way. Feig does a hell of a job with it. It’s a neat little movie that will please those looking for a fun, pulpy thriller.
