Director: Paul Feig
Stars: Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar, Sydney Sweeney
Paul Feig has a way with a high-end campy thriller, but consistency isn’t quite his forte of late. For every A Simple Favour there’s, well, Another Simple Favour. Adapted from Freida McFadden’s airport-ready potboiler, The Housemaid falls disappointing close to the latter, seeking a level of catty intrigue and vicarious thrills, but sputtering out early thanks to a rather lacking screenplay. It boasts a pair of stars who might make merry hell of ripping each other apart were the material up to snuff, but the stars rarely align for them to do so, rendering a telegraphed mystery rather flat and, frankly, tiresomely overlong. Imagine if a Tubi domestic melodrama acquired backing and a budget and you’re half way there.
Millie Calloway (Sydney Sweeney) applies for the titular role in the home of Good Housekeeping mascots Nina (Amanda Seyfried) and Andrew Winchester (Brandon Sklenar), an upper-class couple living in upstate New York. Living a little desperately out of her car and hiding a dark past, Millie doesn’t feel hopeful about getting the job, but in spite of some rather conspicuous concerns, Nina hires her to run the household and take care of daughter Ceci (Indiana Elle). Millie will even slot into a pokey but cute attic bedroom for the live-in position.
Almost immediately the red flags start descending as Nina’s behaviour grows erratic. Initially blamed on hormones from a non-existent pregnancy, Millie discovers that Nina has past form with mental health issues, and the manic, schizophrenic episodes stark stacking up. Andrew, meanwhile, appears to have the patience of a saint, and more than once steps in to save Millie from an impromptu firing. In need of the position, Millie has a tendency to concede and take the fall for incidents that are not her fault. And, wouldn’t you know it, there’s a growing level of sexual tension between her and Nina’s handsome husband.
Part of the problem with The Housemaid is that it’s a little over-keen to insinuate that there are twists waiting behind every corner. The half-explained histories. The illogically behaving side characters (hello Michele Morrone’s underserved groundskeeper Enzo). We’re left waiting for the long-delayed explanations. Structured in such a manner that Gone Girl‘s influence is unmistakable, this becomes a decidedly unflattering point of comparison. Feig’s past-form ensures a certain level of style, but The Housemaid lacks the dynamism or hutzpah of David Fincher’s powerhouse. It’s too spacious and dawdling, even with bouts of choppy editing. There’s too much room for us to pre-empt all the non-secrets. And it’s far too vanilla. The ‘wow’ moments don’t present much wow, and the inevitable reveal and heavy-handed themes have been played out more creatively in recent years.
‘Vanilla’ can be applied in broadly derogatory terms all over the shop, from the ‘chemistry’ between Sweeney and Sklenar in the film’s lazy mid-section to Feig’s frequently god-awful needle-drops. The intent may have been a Gone Girl for the 2020s, but the results cleave closer to the inherently naff Fifty Shades films. A misunderstanding of style and a paucity of substance. Seyfried does her best to salvage things, particularly when Nina’s afforded some shred of dimension during a protracted ‘dear diary’ sequence, but The Housemaid only really comes alive in the last half hour. And at 131 minutes, that’s a long time to wait for… not so much. The climax is clumsily prefigured by almost two hours, and the ending sees a curious return to the casual tempo of the meandering build-up. Not an awful lot works.
Things become a mite more delicious while Sweeney’s Millie has the cat by the tail. Things finally get unpleasant and Feig scrounges up some partway satisfying “good for her” retribution. The schadenfreude is welcome. But with a new Park Chan-wook thriller hanging desirously over the currently release schedule, The Housemaid feels far too tepid an attempt at something others have clearly mastered. It has its moments, and the intent to throw us back to the ’90s heyday of steamy ‘…From Hell’ nonsense is welcome, but it also clashes with the more modern sensibilities that the film panders toward.
Just like the motivations that fuel the movie’s real Big Bad, The Housemaid is feebly superficial. It’s much easier to laugh at it than laugh with it, and neither option is as fun as it should be.
The Lost Highway Hotel 