Film Review: THE HOUSEMAID (2025): A Wicked and Devilish Good Time with Absurdly Entertaining Plot Twists
The Housemaid Review
The Housemaid (2025) Film Review, a movie directed by Paul Feig, written by Rebecca Sonnenshine and Freida McFadden and starring Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar, Don DiPetta, Lamar Baucom-Slaughter, Michele Morrone, Indiana Elle, Elizabeth Perkins, Sarah Cooper, Ellen Tamaki, Megan Ferguson, Amanda Joy Erickson, Alaina Surgener, Cailen Fu, Alexandra Seal and Brian D. Cohen.
Director Paul Feig starts off his new thriller, The Housemaid, with a face/off between a wealthy mom named Nina Winchester (Amanda Seyfried) and her poor housemaid, Millie Calloway (Sydney Sweeney), but the movie becomes something much more deranged than that through a major plot twist that people going into this movie cold will certainly not expect. That twist cannot be revealed in this review as it is something so wickedly genius that it makes the new movie work as a roller coaster ride with plenty of twists and turns although after seeing the entire movie and digesting it, the twist does seem a little absurd but never mind. This film is enormously entertaining with two of the most intriguing actresses working today hamming it up for the camera.
This film opens with the interview for the housemaid job. Millie comes to meet with Nina wearing a pair of glasses and seeming oh so sweet. Little would anyone expect that Millie has a parole officer and a checkered past which involves a “murder.” Millie is hired unexpectedly as her resume is full of false details. Nina has a daughter named Cece (Indiana Elle) and a handsome husband, Andrew (Brandon Sklenar), who is the bread winner in the family while Nina writes speeches for her involvement with the PTA. Nina, it turns out, has some psychiatric problems but wait until you see where they derive from.
Feig’s film plays out in its early stages with catfights of sorts as Nina comes down hard on Millie who has received a room in the creepy attic of the large house in which the movie takes place. Nina makes Millie feel uncomfortable at times, threatening to fire her at certain intervals. At one point, Nina tells Millie to go pick up Cece from dance class who already has plans to sleep over a friend’s house. All hell breaks loose when Millie books a play for Nina and her husband to go see at Nina’s request and then Nina pulls the rug out from under that request, pretending she never made it. A hotel room is booked and that’s where the plot details should halt in this review as this film’s specialty is the surprises it offers one after another in an intriguing way.
Seyfried appears to the crazy one although when we find out a slew of secrets, she’s actually easy to feel sorry for as she once had to pluck 100 hairs from her own head at a key character’s demand. Seyfried keeps the character mysterious enough while Sweeney makes Millie relatable as she tries to make good with her parole officer and change her future by keeping her new job as the housemaid. Sklenar has a much bigger part in the action than was expected with steamy sex scenes with one of our leading ladies that push the envelope in terms of steaminess.
Besides the thrills and wild sex scenes is an interesting plot that does, eventually, go off the deep end with one too many haphazard twists thrown in. Thinking about the film afterwards makes it seem highly implausible, but Feig keeps the suspense mounting in such a way that it’s hard to initially notice. Elizabeth Perkins also chews scenery here as well in just a few brief and wicked scenes as Andrew’s devoted mom.
The Housemaid is full of plot holes, but the movie doesn’t care. It exists to entertain and is a good juxtaposition to the “fill in the blank from hell” movies from the 1980’s and 1990’s such as Fatal Attraction and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. This film’s clever twist is a sharp parallel to those pictures which clearly defined their characters as good and evil. This new movie is a little more complex as the lines are blurred between who the heroes and the villains are for a while. One character out of our three principal players is a total psycho and it’s the character you’d probably least expect.
If The Housemaid entertains (and it definitely does), is it necessary to criticize its flaws? Not really. This film sustains interest for a tad over two hours seamlessly as the pieces of the puzzle of the plot coalesce to create an intense nail-biter where anything goes and it’s impossible to predict which way the plot will turn next. Seyfried and Sweeney hold down the fort with their remarkably well-drawn characterizations, but it’s actually Sklenar who steals the movie in an odd and peculiar way. If one doesn’t shy away from weird twists and sex scenes, then this is the movie for you with its sharp, dark humor and scary plot reveals. It is recommended viewing.
Rating: 7.5/10
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