Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried lead the new psychological thriller “The Housemaid,” which made a bloody entry to movie screens in mid-December of 2025. Based off of the extremely successful 2022 novel written by Freida McFadden, expectations from lovers of the book were extremely high. Sweeney portrays the central character named Millie, a desperate young woman fresh out of jail who takes a job as a housemaid for an extremely wealthy family, the Winchesters. At first, all seems to be well, and Millie is ecstatic to find a well-paying job which additionally serves as her new home. However, Nina and Andrew Winchester, portrayed by Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar, prove to not be an ordinary couple in any way.
The novel, which is about 350 pages, is particularly successful in slowly building tension by dropping very subtle clues to the upcoming plot twist throughout the book as character Nina Winchester’s behavior becomes increasingly erratic, much to the confusion of her housemaid. Through actions like dirtying the house to extreme levels, high maintenance demands, and her attitude towards Millie changing every five minutes, it is a driving force for the rest of the film.
Although this portion of the book was depicted in the film, it felt especially fast. Likely not the fault of the writers and directors, who had less than two hours of screen time to adapt an entire novel to film, the movie overall felt rushed and left the audience lacking in the expositional portions of the story, additionally making the twist blatantly more obvious.
Overall, what really held the film together were Seyfried’s and Sklenar’s performances. For the character to be effective, the audience has to truly believe that Nina is “crazy”. Seyfried, also a producer, is successful in this aspect, being equally creepy and falling apart as a wife and mother simultaneously. Largely due to her performance, it is easy to empathize with her character, who makes human decisions in the search for safety from her abusive husband. Alternatively, Sklenar’s character takes the opposite approach in that he goes from being kind and sympathetic to essentially a manipulative psycho. Perhaps the most important aspect that must be portrayed is that the audience has to believe that Andrew is a kind and doting father and husband, whose marriage is falling apart in front of him. Although the script actually fails in this facet, with some of his lines and early actions leaning towards creepy rather than charming, Sklenar’s performance greatly helps the perception.
Sweeney, on the other hand, is particularly disappointing. The attempts to portray her as plain are a failure altogether. Alternatively, it feels as if overall her performance is very stilted and sleepy, and despite being the main character, none of her lines or scenes are particularly memorable except for Millie eating a sandwich while being covered in blood.
After American Eagle’s “Sydney Sweeney has great genes” commercial controversy and her respective reaction, it felt as if Sweeney really needed to impress the audience, which is something that she failed to do. “The Housemaid” did do relatively well at the box office, grossing around 26 million. Whether that success is as a result of the large book following or Seyfried’s performance is to be seen.
“The Housemaid” may have lacked in some respects, but it shined in others. It was a movie adaptation that kept predominantly to a similar story and themes as the novel did. While there were many moments where certian scenes or lines didn’t land, there were plenty of other suspenseful instances where audiences had their hands over their eyes wondering what was coming next.