The Housemaid by Frieda McFadden is a twisty, thrilling, clever novel about a woman who hires a housemaid to replace her with her husband, who turns out to be positively dreadful. The movie from Paul Feig of Bridesmaids and A Simple Favor fame is a very straightforward, faithful, and almost by-the-numbers adaptation. There are a lot of things going for it, but one big thing detracting from it: Sydney Sweeney.
The Housemaid Review
The Housemaid is a three-person thriller that stars Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar, and Sydney Sweeney. There are other characters, but this thing largely hinges on those three, and they are on-screen, at least one or multiple of them, at the same time for the vast majority of the runtime.
Seyfried is doing incredible work here, which is pretty typical of her. She perfectly balances the crazy that drove Nina Winchester in the novel. It’s a terrific back-and-forth performance that truly carries the movie. Without her performance, The Housemaid would be wholly lacking.
She’s delirious, sympathetic, romantic, clever, and more, all in one stellar performance. Sklenar is also pretty great. He’s a perfect actor for the doting husband version of Andrew Winchester. He feels caring, loving, with real affection behind that world-class smile and warm eyes. When he’s forced to flip a switch and become more menacing and evil, his performance leaves a little bit to be desired, but overall, he’s pretty strong.
Sydney Sweeney is wooden and stiff through most of the 2:11 runtime. She’s the de facto main character, which is why the film suffers. I have not seen Euphoria and do not plan to, but otherwise, I’ve seen very little evidence that Sweeney can actually act well. Her line delivery is bland, and her facial expressions are nonexistent.
There’s one stretch of film toward the end in which she really locked in and delivers a much better performance. She was funny while repaying the torturous favor, but that could be down to her lines of dialogue and not so much her own performance improvement. Her facial expressions, in particular, really hurt the movie. It’s not all that surprising that the movie ups the romance and sex between her character and Sklenar’s.
So often, Seyfried puts in a really great scene meant to make Sweeney scared or concerned or at least confused, but when the camera cut to her, she wasn’t offering anything. Speaking of the camera, it felt as if no one who worked on this movie trusted the actors. The editing cut away from their faces far too quickly.
In so many instances, a longer linger on someone’s face would’ve added to the creepiness and elevated the atmosphere so much. Instead, the quick cuts and edits, while not nauseating, prevent audiences from really being engrossed in the movie. In Sweeney’s case, that’s probably for the better, but everyone else, including Indiana Elle as Cece Winchester, could’ve done a whole lot more with longer screentime in those scenes.
As far as an adaptation goes, it was very straightforward. They tweaked a few things here and there and changed the ending, but it improved on the one major flaw in the book. The ending is rather abrupt in McFadden’s novel, but here, it’s expanded and much more is revealed. It gives Sklenar a chance to redeem his evil turn a little bit. Some of the details fall apart under any scrutiny, but it’s generally best to ignore that and shut your brain off with a movie like this.
Conclusion
The Housemaid seems to be a crowd-pleaser. It’s got plenty of laughs and an engaging story to keep audiences engaged. If nothing else, Amanda Seyfried’s performance is worth the price of admission. It’s just a shame they couldn’t find someone stronger to really act in a cat-and-mouse game with her.
Score: 3/5
