Sweeney plays the new maid hired by Seyfried’s icy suburban princess. But you only think you know how things will unfold.
“The Maid,” a suspenseful domestic thriller, is nothing more (or less) than a piece of post-feminist pulp filmmaking — flashy, fun, and effective. Directed by Paul Feig, from a script (by Rebecca Sonnenshine) based on Freida McFadden’s popular 2022 novel, the film goes over the top in every way, but it does so in an unusually smart and insightful manner. And as a demonstration of how movies are changing, becoming ever closer to fantasy than reality (even when presented as taking place in “the real world”), “The Maid” could almost be considered a landmark.
Director: Paul Feig
Writers: Rebecca Sonnenshine, Freida McFadden
Stars: Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar
A few decades ago, a film like this would have been about a seemingly innocent maid hired by a spoiled wife and mother. In that film, the maid would start out sweet, then begin to manipulate situations sinisterly, only to finally reveal herself as a deranged psychopath. I’m referring to the genre of films like “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle” and “Single White Female.”
The first way “The Maid” tricks us — and it won’t be the last — is by pretending, for a few scenes, that it fits perfectly into the evil-intruder genre. When Millie, played by Sydney Sweeney with a mane of unruly curls, shows up for the interview for the live-in housekeeper position at the suburban mansion of Nina (Amanda Seyfried), who runs her household in Great Neck, New York, with the cold hauteur of an efficiency expert, Millie is sweet and charming, peering through her glasses (which she wears to look intelligent), communicating how eager she is to be hired and do a great job. But after the interview, as she drives away, she takes off her glasses, and an expression of grim resignation crosses her face like a cloud. The glasses were a prop; her entire seemingly shy and charming persona was, perhaps, an act. We feel like we’ve seen this before.
Millie gets the job, of course. And a scene or two later, after she crosses back through the large metal gate marked with a W (for Winchester) and enters the private driveway, Nina shows Millie the splendid, spacious, sprawling three-story mini-mansion, complete with a chandelier, an elegant dark wood spiral staircase, and countless tasteful details (her husband, a tech executive, designed every inch of the house). Millie’s room will be the renovated attic, one of those slanted-ceiling rooms that are either claustrophobic or cozy, depending on your perspective. Millie thinks it’s paradise. As we learn, she’s been living in her car and has spent time in jail; she needs this maid job like a lifeline.
The film’s first twist comes when Nina, the typical wealthy housewife from Great Neck, turns out to be the one who seems crazy. In the morning, Millie discovers a monumental mess in the kitchen, and after diligently cleaning it up, Nina accuses her of throwing away the notes she’d prepared for her upcoming PTA speech. 90s thrillers used to build tension slowly, but not “The Housemaid.” Horrified at having lost her speech notes, Nina flies into a rage, smashing dishes and screaming, and we think, “Maybe Millie should quit?” But according to the film, she can’t quit.
She has a parole officer who wants her to behave herself and threatens her with a return to jail if this job doesn’t work out. This makes no legal sense and feels like a rather forced plot device. But you overlook it, because “The Housemaid” is one of those movies that just pulls you in. It’s too stylish, too entertainingly over-the-top, for you to stop and think about whether it all makes sense.
Paul Feig is primarily known as a director of comedies (“Bridesmaids,” the “Ghostbusters” remake), but he has already dabbled in other genres with films like “A Simple Favor,” and here he does so in a different way, creating a pure thriller with a hyperbolic twist. Feig, like a George Cukor with a bold vision, is drawn to showcasing actresses who reach dramatic extremes, and in “The Maid,” he creates the perfect setting for Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried to play a duo that constantly surprises because it is constantly evolving.
It begins as a class struggle in the new Gilded Age, with the wealthy Nina practically flaunting Millie's poverty. Sweeney knows how to play a "good girl" with a touch of hidden malice, and she immerses us in Millie's role as the victim, so that we are completely on her side, even as we wonder just how manipulative she might be.
I feel obligated not to reveal any more details about "The Maid." It's a film with devilish plot twists, and that's precisely what makes it so captivating. That, and Elizabeth Perkins' ingenious performance as a hellish mother-in-law, and the fact that, by following the intricacies that made the novel a success, the film creates an ideology about the relationships between men and women that is both contemporary, superficially mythological, and perfectly suited to being exploited by a Hollywood thriller.
There's a touch of popular sadism in the plot; "The Maid" features scenes of characters terrorizing each other in violent and extravagant ways. However, these scenes don't feel gratuitous, because they express the characters' motivations, and the audience is invested in the outcome. In the midst of awards season, when those of us in the media are busy endlessly discussing prestige films, this is the kind of high-voltage, stylish, and slightly trashy movie that can steal the spotlight from the others.
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