TAGGED AS: First Reviews, movies, thriller
Paul Feig’s latest film, The Housemaid, hits theaters this weekend, and the critics have spoken. A psychological thriller based on the 2022 novel of the same name by Freida McFadden, the film centers on a struggling woman (Sydney Sweeney) who finds work as a housemaid for an affluent couple (Amanda Seyfried and It Ends with Us’ Brandon Sklenar), only to discover her new employers may harbor some dark secrets. In other words, perfect Christmas Day viewing.
Check out some of the first reviews below:
Throughout the film, Feig and Sonnenshine largely stay faithful to the book – apart from glamming up (and slimming down) the character of Nina, increasing the role of Andrew’s overbearing mother (an austere Elizabeth Perkins) and tweaking some key events so they become even more luridly exploitative.
— Nikki Baughan, Screen International
The Housemaid could be described as a faithful adaptation of a problematic book, foregrounding the easily digestible, style-over-substance shlock that made the book such a viral hit.
— Nikki Baughan, Screen International
Sonnenshine and Feig keep pulling out the rug from under our narrative expectations, though the Hitchcockian precision and even the gallows humor to make the eyebrow-raising goings-on as suspenseful as they are silly is missing.
— David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
We see immediately The Housemaid is not what we thought it might be, meaning the old trope where the new hire is really the crazy one, not the employer. But hang on, Feig and his screenwriter Rebecca Sonnenshine will be piling on so many twists in this thing you will think you are a pretzel by the time it finally crash lands into its finale.
— Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood Daily
Even if this female-driven tale marches right up to the edge of horror, it is more in the tradition of a 40’s-style melodrama pitting two female stars against each other. The only difference is it is on speed, a heightened operatic ride in which the dynamics between the three main characters are constantly changing so that you don’t know what has hit you by the time it ends.
— Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood Daily
This is the kind of movie where everyone seems to have a secret, a past, a problem. It sails over the top on purpose and it undoubtedly is, for me at least, the guilty pleasure of the season.
— Clarisse Loughrey, Independent (UK)
Running over two hours, the entire thing sparks when Seyfried is on screen, and flails when she’s not. Too bad it’s not called “The Housewife.”
— Kate Erbland, IndieWire
The actors keep the wheels spinning through every bonkers development, particularly Seyfried, who swaps the ecstatic rapture of The Testament of Ann Lee for a different kind of hysteria.
— David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
Sklenar nails the balance between friend and freak well enough, while Sweeney makes up for her character’s slow start, becoming increasingly ruthless when the tables are turned, something that happens more than once.
— David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
Seyfried, on the other hand, is a force of nature throughout. The “Mean Girls” and “Mamma Mia!” star gives herself completely to the movie’s madness, throwing food with maniacal gusto and tossing the kind of shade that would cower Regina George.
— Brian Truitt, USA Today
The 1990s were a banner decade for guilty-pleasure trash, particularly the female-driven thrillers that popped up with dependable regularity… Anyone nostalgic for those blissfully ludicrous nights at the multiplex will get a kick out of The Housemaid.
— David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
You should absolutely see Paul Feig’s “The Housemaid” with a crowd. Not because the ostensible thriller is “scary” (it’s rife with not even jump scares, just steadily gliding cameras that reveal someone menacingly standing just outside of the frame), but because this almost-camp adaptation is miles more fun when taken in with a raucous audience.
— Kate Erbland, IndieWire
The Housemaid opens in theaters on December 19, 2025.
