The Housemaid is a pretty average adaptation of a bestselling novel by Freida McFadden, directed by Paul Feig. Rebecca Sonnenshine is the screenwriter who came up with the script that was helped by a pretty talented cast.
Sydney Sweeney stars as the seemingly hapless maid, Millie Calloway. Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar, Elizabeth Perkins, and Michele Marrone are also included in the cast.
I had just read the novel a few days ago, so my impressions of the film are probably somewhat influenced. Spoiler alert…the book is better.
Millie Calloway is recently paroled after serving a decade in prison for manslaughter. She has unbelievable luck when she lands a job as a live-in maid at the Winchester household. The luck seems to be a false flag when Mrs. Winchester seems to be quite mentally unstable. Millie seems to have an ally in the husband, but that gets complicated as well. Not only that, Mr. Winchester has his own agenda. Of course, neither knows that Millie is not exactly as mild-mannered as she appears either.
The film is mostly faithful to the source material. It does gloss over some important background information a bit more than necessary. This is another film where I question the editing. Also, certain details were altered a bit that I thought was unnecessary.
I will acknowledge that the cast was well-chosen. Sweeney is a very beautiful woman who also happens to have some talent and charisma. Seyfried does quite well as the seemingly erratic housewife. The two women work well together in their antagonistic roles.
Anyway, the talent of the cast does make it a watchable film, but it still falls short of great cinematic ingenuity.
I guess it’s just the risk I take when I read the novel just a day or so before seeing the movie. At least, it was not a terrible film.
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