The Housemaid (2025)

If there’s one thing I don’t tend to like about elaborate thrillers is being ahead of the reveal. I like guessing, that’s part of the fun of a mystery. I enjoy being proven right or wrong; that’s part of the game. What I don’t like is when I’m spoonfed information in such a way that I can quickly guess what’s going to happen, what the big twist is, and it undercuts the tension, and I'm left waiting for the big event. Thus, my predicament with Paul Feig’s adaptation of  Freida McFadden’s novel, The Housemaid. 

As our story opens, we find ex-con Millie (Sweeney) living out of her car, trying to find a job and stable housing to meet the terms of her early parole. The dream opportunity arrives when she’s called in to interview as a live-in housemaid (thus the title) for the beyond-wealthy Winchester family. Nina (Seyfried), at first meeting seems like the perfect boss-to-be. Getting the position, Millie thinks she’s got the ideal setup, the daughter is adorable, and Andrew (Sklenar) seems like a picturesque doting father and husband. But as Milly endures Nina’s increasingly erratic behavior, she’ll come face to face with the dark truth within the Winchester home. 

I’ll credit Fieg for working on breaking out of doing simple comedies. He’s certainly put the dodgy big-budget experience of Ghostbusters: Answer the Call behind him. I quite enjoyed the first A Simple Favor as an entertaining genre blend (the sequel not so much). The Hosuemaid proves he’s got a knack for staging suspense and building tension within a straight mystery thriller. My issue with the film is the Ron Howard-level need to telegraph. Throughout the first half, objects, locations, seemingly innocuous details are all delivered with clumsily planted flags: “This will come up later!” “You’ll see this thing again, it’s important!” "Remember this thing we just showed you three times already!"

Being ahead of the big twist, I was relieved when it finally arrived because that’s when the film felt like it finally found its footing. I thought the first half was sluggish as plot details - necessary or not - kept planting themselves. It’s after the clunky setup that Feig looked far more comfortable staging his actors and the story reveals that followed. Suddenly, the film ignites with an energetic spark, and the suspense and tension lead to a thrilling payoff. I just wish the first half didn’t spend so much time spoonfeeding the audience. So, after an uneven start, we enjoy a satisfying finale. 

Of the cast, Seyfried is the standout. She plays every emotion to such manic highs and lows (often within a single take) that it was exciting to watch her cook that character. Brandon Sklenar has been around for a bit now, but I feel like he’s truly popped as an actor after his time on 1923 and with his turn here. He’s suitably broken out of the beefcake roles (while those inclined can still enjoy a protracted look at his bare back patties). I wish I could say similar praise for Sweeney in this one. When she cares or when she has the right material, she can deliver a real performance on the level of Immaculate or Christie (not a great film, but she was good in it). But here, it’s just more of the same sort of blandly affable placeholder performance. As a friend put it to me, she’s the lady version of Armie Hammer (presumably without the cannibalism). You don’t mind they’re in the movie, they just don’t bring anything.

Overall, The Housemaid was an entertaining flick. I keep hearing that a number of modern films are made in ways to compete with people being on their phones, so they need to spell out the plot and over-highlight reveals to keep the audience invested. The irony for a person like me is that this kind of storytelling just makes me want to pick up my phone! That's my lone drawback with this one. I like seeing Fieg break some new ground as a director. The first half might be bluntly tiresome, but I really enjoyed where it went and how well the show pulled itself backtogether. Whether it needs a sequel is up for debate. 

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray 
As we await the 4K release next week, we kick off our coverage with the single-disc Blu-ray + Digital release of The Housemaid from Lionsgate. The film is pressed on a Region A BD50 disc, housed in a standard sturdy Blu-ray case, and complete with an identical artwork slipcover. The disc loads to a standard animated main menu with basic navigation options.

Proving that standard HD still has some life left in it, The Housemaid enjoys a lovely 1080p appearance on disc. A good, clean encode gives the digitally-photographed image plenty of fine detail without any unsightly compression issues. Fine lines, clothing, the immaculate production design, and facial features all get their time to shine. While white and black are certainly the dominant colors in the Winchester house, primaries find their moments to shine. Skin tones are healthy and natural. Black levels are strong, with good shadow detail; there are a couple of spots where I'm curious to see how well HDR will impact the image. All around, good looking disc for those still riding the Blu-ray wave. We aim to cover the 4K when it’s available, so it’ll be interesting to see how well the two discs compare.

On the audio side, we have a solid Atmos mix. It’s good, not amazing. Most of the height channels are used for incidental or spatial sound effects, such as creaks in the structure or echoes. There’s not a ton of action or bombastically elaborate sequences to give that multi-channel presence a lot of immersive oomph. LFE can also feel a bit restricted to incidental impact sounds. The creepy score by Theofore Shapiro fills more of the channel space. Most of the mix is largely Front/Center, letting dialog maintain position in the soundscape. The action and sonic activity certainly pick up for the climax… we also get a nice little extra Height activity and LFE thudding there too to justify the Atmos experience. Not a showstopper demo-mix by any means, but it works well for the film at hand. 

Propping up this disc release is a pretty damned great selection of bonus features. Warning - they’re pretty spoiler-heavy, so don’t dive into them before the film (why you’d do that is beyond me, but apparently people do). First up, we get two excellent commentaries. The Paul Feig solo effort is informative for digging into more scene-specific nuances, but the Paul Feig and the Creative Team track is a heck of a lot of fun. That’s 11 personalities all in the same room or chiming in live via Zoom, so there are a lot of voices, but each contributor delivers something worthwhile about their role in bringing the film together. From there, we get the excellent "From Page to Panic" making-of. At 35 minutes, it covers a lot of detailed ground and is well-produced, not just a lame talking-head EPK featurette. We get a fun tour of the Winchester house. There’s one more little featurette, but at two minutes, it’s a throwaway. Deleted scenes certainly are interesting. A couple I can see why they were cut, others I’d be curious to see how well they’d work in place of other scenes I thought gave away too much. 

• Audio Commentary featuring Paul Feig
• Audio Commentary featuring Paul Feig with producers Laura Fischer, Carly Elter, Todd Lieberman, cinematographer John Schwartzman, composer Theodore Shapiro, editor Brent White, casting director Allison Jones, screenwriter Rebecca Sonnenshine, production designer Elizabeth Jones, and costume designer Renee Ehrlich Kalfus.
• From Page to Panic: Making The Housemaid (HD 35:52)
• Secrets of the Winchester House: A Housemaid Tour (HD 11:38)
• A Peek Inside (HD 2:06)
• Deleted Scenes (HD 8:17)
• Theatrical Trailers

I was hoping to love The Housemaid; mystery-suspense thrillers are my jam on toast these days, but I came away from this one simply entertained. Which isn't bad, but I really wanted to like this one more than I did. The last half of the film thankfully saves itself, but the front half was a frustrating stretch of setup that often laid bare the twists and turns long before they happen in the story. While Sweeney is first star credited, it’s ultimately Seyfried’s show as she works circles around everyone, delivering one hell of a performance. Feig is showing he’s more comfortable with straight thrillers without a comedic twist, and he can certainly stage a complex, suspenseful climax, just needs to work on not telegraphing those reveals. On Blu-ray, The Housemaid cleans up with a strong video transfer, a solid Atmos mix, and a pretty damned robust selection of extras. Recommended