There is a strange impulse to punish movies that don’t explain themselves quickly.
We label them slow or dull and their characters flat. For a lot of viewers, “The Housemaid” has been living inside that impulse since its release, and I think that’s a mistake.
It moves carefully.
Not slowly.
Like it knows that if it reveals too much too soon, the spell will break, so it withholds and it lets conversations trail off. By the time the tension becomes obvious, it has already settled into your shoulders.
The premise is simple enough to feel harmless: A young woman recently released from prison takes a live-in job working for a wealthy family. The house is beautiful. The husband is handsome and gentle. The wife is … difficult. Nothing about this setup is new, which is exactly why it works. The film leans into familiarity only to then use it against you.
Amanda Seyfried’s (“Mamma Mia,” “Mean Girls”) performance took my breath away. Her character is volatile, humiliating, impossible to please. One moment she’s calm and composed, the next she’s unpredictable. Watching her feels like standing too close to a cracked mirror: You recognize something human or “normal” in her, but it’s warped just enough to make you feel uneasy.
And then there is Sydney Sweeney (“Euphoria,” “The White Lotus”).
A lot of the criticism surrounding this film has been about her performance: too quiet and too blank. I understand where that reaction comes from. She has a recognizable, almost monotonous presence that follows her from role to role. But here, I personally think that monotony is the point.
Her character is on parole, which means she is disposable and she knows it. Every movement is very cautious. People who are afraid of losing everything don’t speak loudly. They minimize to ultimately endure.
That restraint makes the moments when she finally doesn’t endure anymore feel quivering.
There’s a scene involving shattered china and a demand so cruel it almost feels psychotic. It’s the first time the film allows her to be loud. That exact shift is what changes the temperature of everything that follows, and I think she portrayed it quite well.
What impressed me most is how the movie handles revelation. You spend most of the runtime creating theories about the wife, about the marriage, about the house itself. You start assigning guilt long before the film does, and when the truth finally begins to surface, it arrives in succession. One realization destabilizes the next. Some viewers might find that indulgent, but I found it cinematic.
I never choose movies because I want to be impressed. I choose them because I want to leave my own life for a little while. I want to forget the room I’m sitting in and trade my thoughts for someone else’s. “The Housemaid” did that.
I walked in distracted. I walked out calibrated to a different world. I loved it.
Grade: A
