Publication Date: 01-20-2026

The Housemaid (2025) review

Dir. Paul Feig

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★

Apropos of nothing, but I hadn’t intended to see The Housemaid late Sunday evening. Catherine and I had actually went to the theater to see the new horror movie Night Patrol, but a strange theater issue prevented that movie from playing. So, our manager friend at our local AMC informed us that The Housemaid was about to start in the auditorium across the hall. That was perfectly fine by me. Here I was resigned to the belief that a busy holiday schedule and some indie release (The Plague being one of them) would prevent me from seeing one of the buzziest films of the season on the big screen.

For starters, I’m a little surprised that people seem surprised by how solid The Housemaid actually is. Director Paul Feig proved he could make the segue from broad comedies (Bridesmaids, Spy) to mystery-thrillers with A Simple Favor. While that film might rapidly be approaching eight years old, its sequel just came out last year. If anybody could take the pulpy, opulently trashy Freida McFadden novel and adapt it for the big screen, and get some quality work out of its trifecta of headliners, Feig would’ve been on my shortlist of people to do it.

Working off of a script by Rebecca Sonnenshine, Feig’s film introduces us to Millie Calloway (Sydney Sweeney), a young woman scrambling to find stability in both employment and housing in order to meet the demands of her parole. Despite being underqualified, she applies to be a live-in housemaid for a wealthy woman named Nina Winchester (Amanda Seyfried). When Nina, whose mansion is so spotless is doesn’t even appear to be lived-in, hires Millie, she even gives her the attic bedroom as a bonus.

Nina lives with her hunky, tech-involved husband, Andrew (Brandon Sklenar), and young daughter, Cece (Indiana Elle). It’s a life that should make her impossibly happy, but it doesn’t take Millie more than a couple days on the job to see that Nina has a bipolar personality. She’ll tell Millie to pick up Cece from ballet class, and then scold her for doing it when she gets home. Weirdly enough, Andrew couldn’t be more patient with Nina; he’s mastered the heartthrob movie husband with a soft-spoken voice and a million dollar smile. When he starts making unmistakable, flirtatious passes at Millie, Nina notices, and her vindictive side emerges.

While this should probably be Sydney Sweeney’s time to shine in a darker role — Immaculate, her foray into Nunsploitation, was a whole lot of nothing — Amanda Seyfried is the one with the performance of the hour. Within the first 20 minutes, which tags the bases of her character introduction and shows her first ear-piercing, jaw-dropping outburst, she confirms that she knows the tone of the material at hand. She contrasts well to Sweeney’s more subdued personality, which fits if only because we watch the story unfold almost exclusively through her own perspective. Brandon Sklenar comes across as laconic, especially compared to the two female leads, yet his character achieves some chemistry with both of them. Although Feig and Sonnenshine make an attempt to go the erotic route, their efforts are half-hearted with a couple of curiously PG-13 sex scenes in an R-rated movie. But I get it. If I was as impossibly handsome as Sklenar (who proved to be charismatic in last year’s Drop), I wouldn’t have much use for a shirt either.

Other supporting players such as Michele Morrone, as the Winchester’s gardener, and Elizabeth Perkins as Andrew’s snide mother exist on the periphery. Their presence isn’t as impactful as the screenplay initially alludes, but it doesn’t matter much in the long-run. The Housemaid is the kind of plucky, engaging mystery that rescues itself from pitfalls almost as if Sonnenshine pulled a Shane Black ala Lethal Weapon and wrote “gotcha” in the margins of the script. It rewards your attention by generation tension and answering your burning questions. Even after guiding you through a 15-minute prologue that contextualizes the marriage of Nina and Andrew, the film doesn’t run out of surprises. On the contrary, it tantalizes you with a surprisingly bloody climax that earns your winces.

If A Simple Favor was the cinematic equivalent of a trashy beach-read, as I billed it in my review, then The Housemaid is the scandalous sister film that sidesteps the “guilty pleasure” tag. It’s simply a pleasure.

Starring: Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar, Indiana Elle, Michele Morrone, and Elizabeth Perkins. Directed by: Paul Feig.