The Housemaid Review | Seyfried & Sweeney Make Revenge Bloody, Raunchy & Deliciously Fun

Picture this : A big mansion, a filthy-rich couple & a young blonde housekeeper. If any Wattpad erotica readers are looking for a predictable plot, they would think they’ve found it right here. Although Paul Feig has other plans (and a big smirk on his face). Despite the deception, The Housemaid (2025) is no two-hour sleazy entertainer but something far more fleshed out. Adapted from a novel by Freida McFadden, this film features Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar and Sydney Sweeney in lead roles. 

Millie (Sweeney) is running from her past and from a fate that refuses to loosen its grip, for better or worse. Desperately in search of work, she approaches Nina Winchester (Seyfried), who is looking for a housemaid to help maintain her bland pastel-beige mansion and care for her daughter, CeCe (Indiana Elie). 

The inevitable is already within the audience’s foresight: Nina’s wealthy tycoon husband Andrew (Sklenar) and Millie allow their gazes to linger on each other a few seconds longer than propriety would permit. What unfolds is a notorious interplay between the expected and the unexpected, shaped by a clever screenplay that draws strong chemistry and an edge-of-the-seat dynamic between its three leads.

Feig’s film works well in tempering Sweeney, allowing attention to shift beyond her widely debated celebrity persona and highlighting her as a capable actor. Sweeney is fantastic as Millie, even echoing flashes of the volatile, wronged woman she portrayed as Cassie in Euphoria: season one (2019). Seyfried plays the picture-perfect trophy wife, concealing sinister secrets beneath the façade—ones that only time will reveal. Her relationship with Andrew comes across as deeply disconnected and beyond repair as the charming husband can’t seem to understand why his wife is acting irrationally “angry”. 

The Housemaid puts up a fantastic case for smiles—the unkempt wife’s poised smile, the fatally attractive husband’s grin and the housekeeper’s obedient one. It also notices smiles arriving uninvited, blooming beside loss and absence with quiet lingering unease. The film takes its time establishing its motives and backstories; yet, this very pacing teases the audience within its slow-burn thriller framework.

The two women mirror each other in appearance and temperament, both concealing a latent darkness. Nina oscillates between adoring pal and complete tyrant, the latter dominating, leaving Millie regularly bullied and gaslit. Sweeney initially flattens the energy, portraying Millie as mostly acquiescent, serving merely as the audience’s lens into this troubled family while absorbing unreasonable demands and accusations with minimal pushback. The surrounding circle of mean-girl moms contributes a relentless commentary on Andrew’s attractiveness contrasted with his wife’s instability. He offers apologetic support for his wife’s volatility and Millie’s focus on her duties falters under his ambiguous attentions, even manifesting in a suggestive dream.

As the narrative accelerates into increasingly unhinged territory, Sweeney gains room to assert herself, navigating shifting allegiances that are formed and immediately betrayed. The supporting cast delivers unevenly, with Michele Morrone’s taciturn Italian groundskeeper Enzo relegated to a minor role here despite his more pivotal presence in the source material.

Contrastingly, Andrew’s stern and impossible-to-please mother Evelyn (Elizabeth Perkins) appears in brief scenes but her narrative impact is far more harrowing. If there is one performance that stands out, it is Seyfried’s—oscillating between the unpredictably unhinged and the deeply misunderstood, never revealing her hand until the final 45 minutes.

Despite adopting a Basic Instinct (1992) meets Gone Girl (2014) style thriller format, it never quite takes full advantage of the opportunities before it, hesitating to indulge in the campy humour it repeatedly gestures toward. Seyfried and Sweeney are deranged in many of the ways Amy Dunne is in Gone Girl (2014), and the sexual tension, gore and appetite for revenge are dialled up several notches.

There’s plenty to unpack here: the trap of traditional marriage, parental trauma and the halo effect. Yet the focus misses the one caught in the middle, CeCe, who barely manages to grow up within a troubled environment while witnessing the distressing relationships that define this triangle. She has a miniature dollhouse that mirrors the house she lives in, complete with compartments and dolls, reduced to her playthings and also becoming Feig’s and screenwriter Rebecca Sonnenshine’s playground for turning the larger space into a cat-and-mouse tale of desire, delusion and derangement. As much as this damage is inherited, it is also survived. The film is deeply empathetic toward its women; in spirit, it acknowledges both women’s rights and women’s wrongs, with a knowing wink.

A glaring shortcoming in the film lies in its uninspired and careless use of music. The soundtrack leans heavily on Instagram and TikTok viral pop tracks, seemingly dropped in to elicit Gen-Z recognition. Selections range from Lana Del Rey’s Cinnamon Girl, Kelly Clarkson’s Since You’ve Been Gone, to Sabrina Carpenter’s Please Please Please and Taylor Swift’s I Did Something Bad, each reducing potentially poignant moments to superficial musical name-drops.

Sonnenshine navigates Nina & Millie’s dual viewpoints with apparent ease, preserving several of the book’s most memorable sequences. Much of the film’s appeal lies in anticipating a scene’s direction, only to have it veer in a cunningly unexpected way. A relentless cascade of dangerous revelations, paired with Seyfried’s volatile performance, sustains engagement until the accumulated tension bursts into absolute chaos. In this film, “every action carries consequences” and for enthusiasts of feminist gore cinema, it flourishes through spectacle, crafted to engage an audience prepared to navigate its daring tonal shifts. In this regard, The Housemaid (2025) offers a guilty pleasure with its explosive narrative turns—delivering a sense of mischievous satisfaction that is hard to resist.