Talking 'Bout The Twists: The Housemaid

I'm talking about the twists in The Housemaid and why I found them so effective.

Listen at the podcast providers of your choice.

• iTunes
• Spotify

Scott's Self-Indulgent Movie Podcast · Episode 1081: Takin Bout the Twist: The Housemaid

Twisty thrillers are one of my favorite genres. But they have a major downside as a reviewer. Truly discussing the appeal of a movie with plot twists, means you have to spoil said twists. To use an example from a nearly thirty year old movie, you can talk an awful lot about the appeal of Fight Club without addressing that movie's main twist. But a thorough analysis of its themes and ideas requires discussing the twist because it is so integral to the movie's send-up of toxic masculinity. I bring all of this up because I thought similar things while thinking about the holiday season's unexpected hit The Housemaid. Because so much of this movie's appeal isn't just in it's pulpy "what's going on here?" premise, but also in what the payoff addresses and subverts.

With that in mind, today I'm talking about the twists in The Housemaid and why I found them so effective.

But first, let's get a reminder of our setup before the big reveals hit.

The Movie Up To The Twist

Up until the twists, The Housemaid follows a familiar formula for psychological thrillers. Our titular housemaid, Minnie is a young woman with a checkered past, who's lied her way into this seemingly cushy job with a seemingly nice family. But basically since day one, Minnie has received a flurry of targeted abuse from the woman of the house Nina including wild accusations of sabotage and incompetence, intentionally misleading her, and a general parade of psychological abuse that requires intervention from Minnie's husband Andrew. 

Minnie also receives a slow trickle of information that Nina is mentally unstable and possibly violent.

Nina appears to be dangerous and Andrew appears to be a white knight, putting on a brave face for his adopted daughter and wife in desperate need of help, with Nina's behavior seemingly pushing Minnie towards Andrew and culminating in a sex-fueled night out in the city and a confrontation between Nina Andrew and Minnie where Nina says she knows what the pair has done and is ready to ruin Minnie's life.

Andrew intervenes and demands that Nina is the one who should leave, and Minnie more or less picks up as Nina...and it doesn't take long for the facade to drop.

The First Two Twists

The first twist is the one the audience has likely guessed. Andrew is too good to be true. In spite of his calm exterior, our handsome doting husband is actually an abusive control freak, who locks Minnie up in the attic, with little to no sustenance, before she completes a violent penance for an innocuous mistake. 

And the first thing the audience is probably thinking is...this explains it. This explains why Nina is so unhinged. This abusive man drove her crazy and now he's simply recreating the cycle with another woman in Nina's place. Which is...half true. Because now the movie drops the second big twist.

Everything that's happened up until this point has been masterminded by Nina. 

In a "here's how we got here" series of flashbacks, the audience finally gets Nina's backstory of being a promising, intelligent young woman whose career prospects took a hit after getting knocked up by her law professor and was seemingly "rescued" by Andrew. 

Everything looked alright, until Andrew demonstrated the same abusive/controlling behavior. But that's the tip of the iceberg. Not only has Andrew been abusing Nina this whole time, but he's also eviscerated her image by drugging Nina after he releases her and making it look like she attempted to kill her daughter (the nasty rumor that's been circling around town the entire time).

And since then Andrew has weaponized Nina's daughter Cece, the legal system and the rumor mill to his advantage to keep Nina under his thumb. Nina's only confidante being the groundskeeper Enzo, who volunteers to kill Andrew to keep Nina and Cece safe (since he witnessed something similar happen to his sister).

Instead, Nina decides to bring in Minnie and deliberately push the two together through her erratic behavior and her own knowledge of Andrew's proclivities. Effectively freeing her and Cece from Andrew's grasp and serving up Minnie in her place.

Why I Like This Combination So Much

Reason #1: It All Locks Into Place

There's more twists ahead but first let's talk about why these first two twists work so well. The reveal that Andrew is in fact monstrous, is something that the movie has been hinting at this entire time. It's a general rule that if a movie like this is showing you one dynamic over and over and over again (in this case crazy wife and calm/kind husband) it's a red-herring. Something to deliberately throw you off the scent for what's really going on. 

And there's been hints as well. The design of the attic is intentionally oft-putting from the jump thanks to its triangular shape and how far removed it is from the rest of the house and features a number of troubling features like a door that only seems to lock from the outside or a window that can't be opened. We've also seen demeaning jabs from Andrew's intense looking mother and at least one heavy hint from Cece to Minnie that Minnie is in danger.

So the reveal that Andrew is actually a monster makes perfect sense. But that doesn't explain why Minnie was hired in the first place or why everything that's happened seemed to push Minnie into Andrew's orbit.

But Nina masterminding the whole affair does. 

Because as wild as her behavior has been, Nina's decisions seem tailor-made to drive a wedge between her and her husband. She brings in a younger woman with very similar features to herself, berates her in front of her husband and company, and then hands off her own clothing to Minnie so she can dress "appropriately" for the job, before having Minnie purchase a night on the town with her husband she's well aware she can't attend. While also giving Minnie a phone that she can and does trace and extract data from on a whim?

Even before the twist is reveals this all feels calculated. Like part of someone's process or plans. And this reveal confirms that feeling.

It also highlights a lot of the film's themes and big ideas.

Reason #2: A Takedown of "Nice Men" and "Crazy Women" Narratives

I think there's a misconception that abusive men and predators are easy to spot. I get in on an instinctual level, because abuse is an anti-social/abhorrent behavior so we naturally assume that a lot of the worst monsters demonstrate their proclivities openly. And some do.

But an awful lot of them survive and thrive by being "good" in almost every other aspect of their lives. More or less banking on that positive public image to be used in their favor against their victims.

As an industry example, as synonymous as Harvey Weinstein is with sexual assault and abuse today, before all of the whisper network went public, Weinstein was known as a tough businessman who was kind to a lot of his talent with creators like Kevin Smith admitting that Weinstein showed him a lot of kindness that was beneficial to his life and career via favors like jetting him across the nation to on his own dime to address a family medical concern.

And if your victim is deemed "mentally unwell," all the better.

Another thing The Housemaid addresses, even if not's looking to dissect it, is also how systems that are designed to protect people, especially women, are easily weaponized against them.

Despite Nina being drugged and emaciated, all it took was a staged scene from a wealthy man to more or less put a young woman under his thumb for forever. Because as Nina, more or less says, any time she would resist or act out, Andrew could simply say she was experiencing another episode and send her back to the psych ward.

The other thing this leans into, is how susceptible women who should know better, are to these lies. It's sad but true, that men like Andrew aren't just counting of systemic support to prop up their images, they're relying on social norms as well. Like the cadre of rich housewives who consistently talk shit about Nina behind her back and how sainted her husband is for putting up with her.

As if all of their husbands are perfect or don't behave differently at home versus in public view of other people. Their natural setting around Nina being dubbed "crazy" should be suspicion, as it should be for anyone who hears someone call a woman unwell. But instead they help keep Andrew safe.

So it makes sense that Nina's only solutions were either murder or an elaborate plan to offer up a replacement on a silver platter. Which in and of itself, is not something someone who hasn't been abused looks to do.

Not that it's a good solution...

Reason #3: Cycles of Abuse

The third reason I like this one two punch so much is that it's lightly alluding to how cycles of abuse work. The sad reality is, Nina was not in a position to leave of her own volition without giving up access to her daughter. Which is a very common way bad folks weaponize children against their victims. The victim will then test their abusers control in whatever way they can, and they are punished accordingly. And their only escape, might be someone else taking their place.

Something I find so smart and insidious is how easily Nina is able to track the type of woman Andrew would try to replace her with. Basically a younger, still damaged, but not broken down version of Nina.

Even if this wasn't masterminded by Nina, there was a non-zero chance of Andrew doing this anyways. Because Nina is too aware of his monstrous nature and not getting any younger. And he's obsessed with Nina looking youthful. And likely wants a more enthusiastic sexual partner vs. one who's succumbing to martial rape to keep her daughter safe.

What's so sad is that this could have been Andrew's chance to live up to his "good guy" image. But that's not what he wants. He wants to follow his pattern. Because that feels right to him.

Why? The movie doesn't dive into it too much, but it heavily hints that Andrew is also the victim of similar abuse via his mother. The phrases she uses have been passed on and so many of his freakouts are centered around things that are important to his mother.

It obviously doesn't excuse his behavior, but I like this nod to the notion that Andrew is perpetuating a cycle of abuse that was inflicted upon him onto unsuspecting women, by giving them the exact kind of escape valve he couldn't get when he was young. Unless of course, he's trapped the wrong woman...

The Third Twist

The third twist isn't as big as the others, but it might be the film's most fun. The third twist is that Minnie isn't the pushover that Andrew might believe her to be.

For most of the movie we get loose allusions to Minnie's past. We see her sleeping in her car. And she has to visit a parole officer on Saturdays to check in. She got out early from a 15 year sentence after serving ten and she's not looking to go back. 

But we never heard what for. Until Minnie turns the tables on Andrew by attacking him and trapping him in the same attic he trapped Nina and Minnie in. Quickly forcing the man to go through the same kind of self-mutilation he put Minnie through. A nice reverse Saw-style situation for an abuser.

Because it turns out Minnie was in jail for murder. For violently attacking, and accidentally killing a young man who was raping her friend. 

And Nina's known that the whole time. In fact, she's been secretly hoping that Minnie, without the leverage of a daughter, would be able to do what she never could and truly fight back against Andrew. She was right, but that also doesn't relieve her guilt. Especially once her daughter mentions how bad she feels for Minnie.

The main reason I like this twist so much is that it does two things neatly as the same time. First it flips the expected power dynamic almost immediately. So instead of being a tense stand-off between a man holding all of the cards and a woman under his thumb, we've reverse it into a bad man getting what's been coming to him for years. It also, not entirely, but somewhat, lightens what Nina did.

Because Nina did a shitty thing. As much as she was looking to save herself and her daughter, she did it by offering up another woman's life as a sacrifice. To a woman who is seemingly just as vulnerable as she once was. So Nina's selection of Minnie because of her violent past, alludes to the idea that she's always been aware of how wrong this is.

As does her decision to come back and try to help her. Because escape is just the first step of breaking the cycle. The second is making sure it never happens to anyone else.

The Final Twist: A Bit of Unexpected Solidarity

The Housemaid culminates with a seemingly unwinnable situation for Nina and Minnie. Minnie pushes Andrew, who's about to kill Nina, off the stairs to his death. Which, in spite of her best efforts, is not going to look like an accident. So Nina decides to try to account, tells Minnie to run, and says she will claim this was an accident and take responsibility if needed. Because as she says "you didn't deserve this," to which Minnie shrewdly responds "neither did you."

So now Nina is being interrogated by a local police officer who is already poking holes in Nina's "accident" narrative. But much to Nina's surprise, said officer...doesn't care. Because her sister Kathryn was once engaged to Andrew, and encountered the same violent abuse Nina and Minnie did.

While you can wax about the legality of moral implications of this, as a payoff to this story it makes perfect sense.

Because the thing that finally stopped Andrew's abusive pattern wasn't a new woman. It was fighting back and solidarity amongst women to make sure it ended with him.

Conclusion: The Real Fun? No Hapless Victims

As much as I like the twists for how they upends audience expectations or reinforce the movie's themes. The real appeal is that neither Nina or Minnie is a helpless victim in their story. Instead of needing saving from a white knight, they both use their will and intelligence to stop a false one. And not only are they able to escape Andrew's grasp, they're also rewarded for their actions with Nina getting Andrew's wealth to start a new life elsewhere and Minnie getting a tidy sum to start over and a recommendation for a new gig...likely taking down another shithead man. And that's both extremely fun and satisfying for a genre that often bends over backwards to present women as master manipulators or horrified victims.