The Housemaid review – Sydney Sweeney takes the job from hell in a gruesome thriller | film

DDirector Paul Feig is known for his broad comedies. Now he turns the serious schlock dial for a highly entertaining – or at any rate very entertaining – psychological thriller in the spirit of 1990s noir thriller, adapted by screenwriter Rebecca Sonnenschein from the 2022 bestselling book by Frieda McFadden. We’re back in the glossy, sleazy world of Curtis Hanson’s The Hand That Rocks the Cradle or Joe Eszterhas’s Basic Instinct, but we’re much closer to satire, if not very close to it.

The scene is a quaint, stately mansion somewhere in upstate New York, wonderfully isolated amidst a sea of ​​bland suburban housing; It is approached by car once you pass the electronic gates. And this is where Millie (Sydney Sweeney) nervously drives, wearing fake glasses to make herself appear more mature, to apply for a job as a housemaid for the wealthy couple who live there; She hopes potential employers won’t notice the troubling inconsistencies on her resume. She’s greeted by smiling Stepford blonde Nina Winchester (Amanda Seyfried), who seems to have a crush on Mellie, and explains that the job entails cooking, cleaning, and caring for her young daughter, Sissy (Indiana Elle).

But on her first day on the job, poor Millie discovers that the house, which was a perfect display of Martha Stewart when she first saw it, is now a miserable mess, and Nina screams in spiteful rage, blaming Millie for everything, apparently the result of her missing medication. Her husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar), as handsome as a young Alec Baldwin, assures Millie that all is well; Millie finds herself fatally drawn to him, as well as grateful for his gentle interventions to keep her from being fired from the job she so desperately needs. The sexual tension is unbearable. But what happens? Is either of them behaving as they seem? Is Millie up to something?

We get some delicious acting and some huge shifts in point of view to explain what’s really going on – and of course, the strong whiff of gaslighting as Millie can’t quite be sure she really understands anything that’s going on. It may be silly, but Feig and his crew deliver it with great enthusiasm; Such innocent holiday fun.