The Housemaid makes up for a couple of hiccups with a sequence of sharply staged shocks, leading to a enjoyable and satisfying thriller, notes Mayur Sanap.

Early on in The Housemaid, we meet Sydney Sweeney’s Millie as she interviews for a live-in maid place on the Winchesters’ luxurious residence.

From the second she walks in, you may inform one thing is not fairly proper concerning the household she hopes to work for.

The interview is assessed by Nina Winchester (Amanda Seyfried), a seemingly polished housewife who clearly has one thing occurring about her.

Nevertheless it’s not simply Nina. One thing is off about Millie as nicely.

She is determined for the job, and it quickly turns into clear that she has cast paperwork and lied on her resume to safe it.

Millie is employed and he or she strikes into the Winchester house, which additionally consists of Nina’s suave, good-looking husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar) and their younger daughter.

Andrew positions himself as this excellent gentleman with charming smiles and unusually type nature.

Millie can not help however really feel drawn to him, which units the strain between the characters.

 

The movie wastes no time in establishing the eerie tone.

There may be one properly deranged second at first the place Nina casually jokes, with a smile, ‘Oh my God! What sort of monsters are we?’

This seemingly innocent line foreshadows a lot darker turns within the narrative, one character at a time.

The primary half unfolds very very like Paul Feig’s earlier directorial A Easy Favour, a enjoyable and trendy thriller starring Anna Kendrick and Blake Full of life.

Right here, he attracts the story from Freida McFadden’s 2022 psychological thriller novel and turns the fabric into an intense, partaking thriller. If you’re unfamiliar with the e-book, as I used to be, the twists are very satisfying to look at.

The narrative initially unfolds by Millie’s perspective earlier than shifting to Amanda’s Nina, a change that sheds mild on what’s actually occurring beneath the floor.

This structural shift is just like Gone Woman, the place altering factors of view deepen the twists and add new layers upon the characters.

Sure, a couple of moments verge on the foolish and require a wholesome suspension of disbelief, however that is the place Director Feig leans into deadpan humour he earlier showcased in movies like Bridesmaids and Spy.

This mild contact of comedy makes most of those scenes land, aided considerably by killer performances from each Sydney and Amanda, however particularly Amanda, who’s totally charming in her deliciously unhinged flip as Nina.

Because the story progresses, it turns into clear that there’s way more to those individuals than meets the attention.

What would possibly initially appear to be an easy thriller steadily reveals itself as a surprisingly layered, character-driven drama that finally bares itself as a refreshingly distinctive feminist story.

The movie takes a bit too lengthy to say what it needs to say, and even lags barely within the course of.

However with narrative twists this wild, it might have been straightforward for this movie to go off the rails.

Nonetheless, The Housemaid stays the bottom and makes up for a couple of hiccups with a sequence of sharply staged shocks, leading to a enjoyable and satisfying thriller.

The Housemaid Evaluate Rediff Score: