Soapy, glossy trash delivered with wit, style, and indelible performances makes for a satisfyingly old-fashioned thriller with bite.
George Cukor and, more recently, Pedro Almodóvar bristled at the notion of being pigeonholed as “women’s directors,” but Paul Feig seems to wear the mantle with pride, delivering satisfyingly complex female characters making their way through a thorny and sometimes terrifying world. The entertaining and occasionally over-the-top The Housemaid returns Feig to A Simple Favor territory, serving up aspirational, glossy wealth-porn with one hand and the dark underbelly of the glamorous life with the other.
It’s akin to the relationship Cecil B. DeMille had with Bible epics, titillating audiences with orgies and other Roman excesses before assuring audiences that Christian piety would win the day. Feig’s heroines look great in their designer ensembles and cream-colored mansions, but by the end of the story, viewers feel better about their not-wealthy lives after watching what these women have to endure to keep their manicured lifestyles.
The Housemaid tells the story of Millie (Sydney Sweeney), whose complicated past makes it difficult for her to find a job and to stay on the good side of her parole officer. She seems to have hit the luckiest of breaks when she’s hired by Nina (Amanda Seyfried) as a housemaid for her palatial home, designed to the last detail by Nina’s successful husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar, Drop), who inherited the family business. The fact that it’s a live-in position is no problem for Millie, who’s been sleeping in her car, although the new hire is a little curious as to why her attic bedroom locks from the outside.
The casual, endearing Nina of the job interview soon becomes a nightmare boss, berating, gaslighting, and generally tormenting Millie as Andrew tries to paper over his wife’s erratic behavior. Millie starts hearing rumors about Nina’s mental-health history; all the other wealthy housewives agree that Andrew’s a saint for putting up with her, so of course it’s only natural for Andrew’s kindness towards Millie to blossom into something deeper.
And to go beyond that in the plot would be to reveal the delectably diabolical surprises contained in this adaptation of Freida McFadden’s best-selling novel. Suffice it to say that Millie and even Nina enter the pantheon of Feig’s resourceful, resilient, and dynamic heroines, alongside the supportive friend-group of Bridesmaids, the enforcers of Spy and The Heat, and the supernatural scientists of Ghostbusters.
The sheen of wealth here, from production designer Elizabeth Jones (Space Cadet), offers more than I-want-that-divan choices; it’s a honeypot, a trap that takes in unsuspecting victims before curdling very quickly. (Elizabeth Perkins, as the icy materfamilias, nails the cost to one’s humanity that can occur at that income level.) Screenwriter Rebecca Sonnenshine (The Boys) and editor Brent White (Another Simple Favor) draw viewers into that trap as well, patiently awaiting the right time to show their cards.
In addition to Perkins’ masterful turn, we get pitch-perfect work from the three leads, without whom the story’s various twists wouldn’t land. Seyfried — also extraordinary in The Testament of Ann Lee — makes both sides of Nina’s personality utterly believable and unpredictable while Sweeney’s Millie, the audience’s portal of entry into this world, works confidently as both guarded and vulnerable. Sklenar might not yet be well known, but this is the kind of performance that makes moviegoers learn how to spell a last name.
Feig isn’t afraid of glossy camp, and he knows that the old Hollywood masters, Cukor included, knew how to use camp and excess to uncover truths about human behavior and systemic oppression. These women may suffer in designer gowns and brand-new SUVs, but their suffering, and its root causes, are always being taken seriously. It’s a fine line to traverse, but Feig has an attuned sense of balance.