This week’s film is “The Housemaid,” based on the novel of the same name by Freida McFadden. Sydney Sweeney stars as Millie, a paroled criminal living out of her car looking for a new start when she lands a housekeeping job with the seemingly perfect family.
Millie attempts to hide her past from her new employers, Nina and Andrew Winchester, a wealthy couple played by Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar. Millie immediately discovers things are not as they appear, as she is forced to endure the exposure of family secrets and the darker side of the Winchester estate. Millie wants to run, but she’ll violate her parole and go back to prison.
So, Millie takes on whatever is thrown at her as she parades around the house in her minimalist prison wardrobe, which appears limited to various revealing tank tops. Sydney Sweeney doesn’t dress down as well as Halle Berry (“Monster’s Ball”) or Charlize Theron (“Monster”), so she isn’t very believable as a hardened ex-con ready to fight dirty. Still, a few well-delivered deadpan lines elevate her performance beyond mere eye-candy, otherwise flashing her puppy eyes at “1923” hunk Brandon Sklenar, who also manages his share of tank tops. A ghostly Elizabeth Perkins is wasted with mere seconds of screen time as the Winchester grandmother.
So, on my ski trail rating system, “The Housemaid” earns my intermediate BLUE ski trail rating. This is one of those films that just can’t decide what it wants to be. Led by the performance of Amanda Seyfried, early scenes scream of a psychological thriller, but as the final act narration explains the puzzle in a paint-by-numbers manner, the film unsatisfyingly implements the big plot twist in transition to more campy satire. The twist should have been more entertaining, but Sweeney doesn’t have the range, and the script just isn’t clever enough to carry the transition, which most assuredly is handled with more punch and fun in the book.
“The Housemaid” is playing locally at Megaplex at Park City, with a run time of two hours and eleven minutes. The film is rated R for strong, bloody violence, sexual content, nudity, language, and painfully tight tank tops.
