"The Housemaid" Review

Depending on whether you want to love or hate Paul Feig, he's either the creator of the cult fave TV series Freaks & Geeks (which launched the careers of Linda Cardellini, James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Martin Starr, Busy Phillips and more) or the director of the divisive, fanbaiting disaster Ghostbusters: Answer The Call (more accurately Lady Ghostbusters). But for the most part he has specialized in female-fronted comedies like Bridesmaids, The Heat and a trash favorite of ours, A Simple Favor (and it's less great sequel, Another Simple Favor).

So, the news that he was making a movie of one of those trashy novels popular with wine moms starring current vavoom It Girl Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria, Anyone But You) and former curvy light comedy performer (Mean Girls, Mamma Mia) turned ingenue (In Time, Chloe) now Oscar-nominated (Mank) and Golden Globe-winning (The Dropout) Amanda Seyfried, hopes were high for another kicky, kinky, trash-camp funfest like A Simple Favor. While it doesn't hit those heights, it's because it's another beast entirely.

Sweeney stars as Millie Calloway, a young woman on parole for a crime not immediately explained, but it'd been ten years off the job market for her. She's living in her car and desperate for employment to satisfy her parole officer when she interviews with Nina Winchester (Seyfried), a wealthy Long Island woman with a husband, Andrew (Brandon Sklenar, Drop), and daughter, Cece (Indiana Elle). It's a gorgeous showplace mansion home complete with creepy Italian groundskeeper, Enzo (Michele Morrone, Another Simple Favor) and a concerning attic bedroom for Millie as it's a live-in position, checking off the box for her parole.

She gets the job, but when she returns the next day to begin work, the previously spotless, Architectural Digest-worthy home is trashed, with dishes in the sink, clothes all over, etc. Nina is working on a PTA speech and the next day accuses Millie of having stolen it. Millie overhears other PTA mothers whispering about her and another nanny at Cece's ballet class has more tidbits on the backstory of the Winchester family.

The erratic behavior culminates in Nina asking Millie to get theater tickets and a hotel suite for her and Andrew the following weekend, but when they arrive, freaks out and demands Millie explain why she'd spend all that money when she knew they were taking the kid to arts camp that weekend and the spending would come out of her pay, which Millie can't afford. Andrew reassures her that she won't have to pay, but the situation is growing untenable.

When Nina decides to take Cece herself, Millie suggests Andrew should go to the show and he counters with why don't you come with me and wear the nice clothes Nina gifted you? To the shock of no one the trip to the city for dinner and a show and separate rooms at the hotel results in a longer trip to Poundtown. And to even less surprise, Nina knows about it, accuses Millie of stealing the clothes and her car and threatens to have her sent back to prison.

It's at this point the plot pulls a Gone Girl switcheroo and changes POV to recast everything we've seen and what it meant. While the weirdness of certain behaviors like Andrew's obsession with Nina's roots (as in hair, not her being descended from slaves) were waving red flags, what transpires after the switch is sometimes hard to believe like why would you want to disfigure someone you planned on keeping around?

Fortunately, Feig keeps the tonal train on the track though the overall running time could've been trimmed 10-20 minutes. Sweeney is good (exceptional of we're grading on cleavage), but the true star of the show is Seyfried as her performance has to capture a lot of different personas, though the way the script presents things has some large plot holes she has to leap over. And the way they set up an obvious sequel - which has already been greenlit as the film grossed over $350M globally on a $35M budget - raises questions of what the plot will be.

While The Housemaid isn't quite the top shelf trash it aspires to be, it's still respectable enough trash to merit a watch, preferably while heckling at home with a wingman.

Score: 7/10. Catch it on cable/streaming.