The Housemaid
2025
**
Director: Paul Feig
Cast: Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar, Michele Morrone, Elizabeth Perkins, Indiana Elle, Amanda Joy Erickson, Megan Ferguson, Ellen Tamaki, Don DiPetta, Brian D. Cohen, Alexandra Seal, Sarah Cooper, Ken Barnett, Maury Ginsberg
A young woman on parole hopes to rebuild her life by taking a job as a live-in housemaid for a wealthy couple and their young daughter. She soon discovers that the family's seemingly perfect façade hides some dark secrets. Paul Feig's adaptation of Freida McFadden's 2022 novel feels like a throwback to the erotic thrillers of the late 1980s and early 1990s, such as Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct. The difference is that those films starred Oscar-nominated actresses Glenn Close and Sharon Stone, respectively. This one stars Sydney Sweeney, who absolutely cannot act. She is unconvincing in every type of scene, and her line delivery is consistently flat and muffled, even when half her dialogue seems to consist of the line "I'm sorry". The story resembles a reverse The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, with a hint of Jane Eyre thrown in. The twists are ridiculous, and the characters do whatever the plot requires of them at any given moment, regardless of whether their actions make any sense. The final scene suggests that this is the beginning of a franchise.
