Graciously filling a niche that Hollywood has been missing, The Housemaid is the exact kind of trashy fun, I've been hoping for.
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Even before I saw the movie, I was thrilled with The Housemaid's success. There's a lot of reasons, but the biggest is that this is the type of movies studios stopped making. Thrillers based on popular books aimed at adults made for mid-budget money. Small risk. Giant payoff. Spikes sales for the book and its sequel at the same time. Exactly what I was talking about in my "why Blue Streak made me nostalgic," piece. How's the movie itself? It looks like we're in for another twisty trashy on purpose adventure from Paul Feig...
The Setup
Sydney Sweeney plays Millie, a homeless parolee looking for a job, who stumbles into a gig as a housemaid for a wealthy family in Great Neck Long Island. But what seems like a dream gig, quickly sours as the lady of the house Nina, seems to target Millie for humiliation and aggression as secrets about the family begin to spill out...
I'll likely have to do a deep dive into the back end of this movie, because a lot of the most interesting aspects of this movie, really only come to light later. But there's a lot to like here. Let's start with the tone.
Intentionally Trashy Fun
I figured Paul Feig had a movie like this in him. For those unfamiliar Feig is probably best known for directing comedy films starring women incuding a number of collaborations with Melissa McCarthy (see The Heat and Spy). He's also the fella who directed A Simple Favor which liked to blur the line between knowingly trashy and genuine danger.
This time around the tone is almost entirely thriller, but an exaggerated one. But instead of the emphasis being the violence of a crime, as is the case with flicks like Kiss the Girls, we're playing up the unpredictability of Amanda Seyfried's Nina and laying down foreshadowing as thick as humanly possible around every turn.
Something I really like is how the movie highlights a lot of information via visual cues or a lack of dialogue to give us previews of what's to come. For instance, in an early scene Millie comes to the house and finds the once immaculate house in shambles. Cut to the next day and Nina is having a destructive meltdown, which fills in a blank about what probably happened (similar incident a day before).
The film also makes solid use of lighting to emphasize the perspective/dramatic shifts as we go from more or less natural lighting into darker and darker terrtitory as the film progresses.
Great Uses of Our Two Leads (Mostly)
I'm so happy that Amanda Seyfried has started to lean into her penchant for what I'll dub genre fare. Her face is so expressive that asking her to take giant swings in her behavior from scene to scene, not only work but also feel genuinely unsettling.
Whereas Sweeney's acting always excels when she's playing character's with something to hide who might underplay. So being a character who is inherently on her back foot, with a past she's not looking to reveal suits her well.
The one change I'd made is a few bits of voice-over narration from Sweeney that...she doesn't bring enough to. Her delivery is too flat to really sell the Gone Girl Amy narration these scenes really need.
Lays It On Thick (In A Good Way)
I think a lot of thrillers irk me, because they act like they're being really coy about having a twist or two up their sleeves. Like oh ho ho. Something's going on, and you don't know what it is. The Housemaid takes things in a different direction. Instead the films lays everything on so thick that you know, deep down, that something bigger is going on here. It's too neat. Every rumor shuffling around this rich as hell community fits too well. It's like a perfect alibi that's shared between five people. No one has a story this consistent.
The film also smartly throws in a number of glaring red flags, like one or two, that poke giant holes in the dynamic the audience is seeing.
Basically the movie is leaning on the idea that you're smart enough to piece together that whatever this privledged life is, is too good to be true and you should be suspicious of everyone and everything.
The film also smartly throws in a number of glaring red flags, like one or two, that poke giant holes in the dynamic the audience is seeing.
Basically the movie is leaning on the idea that you're smart enough to piece together that whatever this privledged life is, is too good to be true and you should be suspicious of everyone and everything.
Not Afraid of Getting Gnarly
Without giving much away, my biggest fear for a director like Feig is less, can he make a trashy thriller versus, can he get gritty when it makes sense. Short version, he excels here. I think this is where his R-rated action comedy experience helps a lot because he understands how to use violent moments as pay-offs to tension and seems to get that whatever violent act it is, is something akin to a firework.
It also gives the tension a visceral charge when it really needs it.
The Verdict: A Fun Rollercoaster
Graciously filling a niche that Hollywood has been missing, The Housemaid is the exact kind of trashy fun, I've been hoping for. 7/10
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