REVIEW: "The Housemaid"
Director Paul Feig delivers another "gotcha" thriller with plenty of style and gusto thanks to his talented cast, but third-act missteps keep "The Housemaid" from sticking the landing.
Happy Thursday, friends!
Let’s get right into what’s poised to be the only real counterprogramming at the box office this weekend for “Avatar: Fire and Ash” aside from holdovers, “The Housemaid.” As always, postscripts after the video.
Postscripts:
“The Housemaid” is based on the 2022 novel of the same name by Freida McFadden. The novel was an international bestseller and spawned three follow-ups — “The Housemaid’s Secret” in 2023, “The Housemaid is Watching” in 2024, and the short story “The Housemaid’s Wedding,” also in 2024.
I saw this film not having read the novel, so I cannot speak to how well the script and direction adapt the source material.
Cut for time: Brandon Sklenar’s muscular performance as Andrew Winchester in the film has a lot in common with James McAvoy’s chilling work in 2024’s “Speak No Evil.” While their characters’ motivations are very different, they share similar traits, most notably sociopathy — charming and charismatic one moment, brutal and sadistic the next.
The point-of-view shift that marks the start of the third act in “The Housemaid” reminded me of a similar shift in 2014’s “Gone Girl.” It serves a similar purpose, but because in “Gone Girl” it comes earlier in the film, it doesn’t result in the same sense of imbalance that I felt coming away from “The Housemaid.”
One last thing: This is likely to be my final film review of 2025. A big “thank you” to all of you who’ve been here since the start of this Substack in 2023 and to those who have subscribed over the past year for continuing to support this ongoing project.
Some changes may be coming in the new year as I figure out how to balance keeping this project going with new “day job” obligations. I’m weighing whether to switch back to mainly written reviews with occasional videos on the YouTube channel when time permits to discontinuing video altogether — it’s time-intensive and expensive with the costs of editing and captioning software.
Whatever happens, the reviews will continue through 2026, at the very least. Again, thank you for reading and watching, and stay tuned.