The Housemaid
Directed by Paul Feig
Written by Rebecca Sonnenshine, based on the novel by Freida McFadden
Starring Amanda Seyfried, Sydney Sweeney and Brandon Sklenar
Classification 14A; 132 minutes
Opens in theatres Dec. 19
It feels only too appropriate that 2025 would close off with a high-camp thriller pitting Amanda Seyfried against Sydney Sweeney – two actresses who, while perhaps similar in physical appearance, have enjoyed wildly different years on and off the big screen.
Sweeney, who has become the most talked-about actress of the moment with the least amount of successful projects, stars here as Millie, an ex-con desperate to make good on her parole terms and find a steady income before she’s thrown back in the slammer. Enter Nina, the erratic housewife of a wealthy tech bro for whom good help is hard to find – and is played by Seyfried, who has run headfirst into controversy wherever Sweeney has eagerly dashed away (the latter has refused to comment on the perhaps eugenical interpretations of her jeans campaign; the former has eagerly waded into the legacy of Charlie Kirk). More notably, though, Seyfried this year delivered the two best performances of her or anyone else’s career, thanks to Seven Veils and The Testament of Ann Lee.
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Sydney Sweeney, left, and Amanda Seyfried in a scene from The Housemaid.Daniel McFadden/The Associated Press
Getting the two performers into the same room was a genius (if accidentally timed) move on the part of The Housemaid’s producers. But the friction between the pair can only carry a piece of airport-bookstand fluff so far.
As Millie and Nina begin to circle each other warily, and as Nina’s impossibly handsome and kind husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar) enters the picture, director Paul Feig dials up the tension from silly to ludicrous. The filmmaker, who knows his way around suburban scheming thanks to his work on A Simple Favor and its sequel, is under no illusions about the type of film that he’s making. You don’t cast Sweeney in a psycho-sexual thriller and not put her in a ludicrously tight schoolgirl uniform (ostensibly her pyjamas?), after all. Just as you don’t forget to insert a handful of jump scares, steamy shower scenes, and all other manner of slippery, soapy antics.
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Sweeney in a scene from The Housemaid.Daniel McFadden/The Associated Press
Yet it seems that only Seyfried truly understood the assignment that Feig handed her, the actress oscillating between two modes – intense and freakishly intense – with finesse. The actress’s enjoyably loopy work is all the more pronounced in its enthusiasm and commitment when compared to the dour and charisma-free Sweeney, who simply cannot hold a scene here to save her life (which is frequently at stake). Although her recent boxing film Christy didn’t work on the whole, Sweeney delivered a powerhouse performance in the title role, projecting a raw king of energy that is entirely, bizarrely absent here.
By the time that the film flips the narrative on its head – a twist that should be obvious to anyone wondering how Feig is going to fill the remaining hour and change – it is too late to care who wins and who loses in this battle of semi-wits. Give it all – the family, the fortune, the whatever – to Seyfried. It is her house to lose.
