The Housemaid: an enjoyably ‘pulpy’ concoction
Formulaic psychological horror with Sydney Sweeney is ‘kind of a scream’
Sydney Sweeney seems to have more vehicles than Hertz these days, said Jonathan Romney in the Financial Times. This latest, helmed by “Bridesmaids” director Paul Feig, is adapted from a novel by Freida McFadden – and it’s as formulaic as they come.
Sweeney plays Millie, a young woman who gets a job working as a live-in housekeeper in a Long Island mansion belonging to “laid-back tech bro” Andrew Winchester (Brandon Sklenar) and his wife, Nina (Amanda Seyfried). But obviously “nothing is what it seems”: Millie is hiding a chequered past, while the Winchesters themselves are far from kosher. Andrew is suspiciously charming. Nina is increasingly unhinged, and has an “uncanny knack of materialising unexpectedly whenever Millie shuts a mirrored medicine cabinet”. The scene is thus set for simmering sexual tension and ludicrous generic thrills.
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