Sydney Sweeney and the BookTok blockbuster: Review of The Housemaid |
The new psychological thriller starring Sydney Sweeney, The Housemaid, is one of those movies that is more interesting to talk around than about. In the film, Millie (Sweeney) is hired on as a live-in housemaid for a wealthy Long Island family, boarding in their #cottagecore aesthetic attic. The danger of being so young and blonde is that many things in your life are too good to be true, so it’s difficult to recognize when such situations arise. Housewife Nina (Amanda Seyfried) takes an immediate turn from eccentric to erratic, and any attempts by her husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar) to ease tensions only make her more paranoid and jealous of Millie. There are twists galore, but the basic beats will be familiar to anyone who has fallen asleep in front of the Lifetime channel, albeit with more exposed flesh at strategic intervals to keep you awake this time.
A Lifetime original with nudity is imprinted on the id of middle America, with box office tracking this as a likely hit. This will be a relief to the Sweeney camp, which has had a particularly rocky couple of months. After her breakout on HBO’s Euphoria and a behemoth romantic comedy with Anyone But You (2023), she’s had a stretch of box office whiffs with more challenging arthouse fare, such as Eden (2024) and her........