\t\t\tmovie review\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\tTHE HOUSEMAID\t\t<\/p>\n
Running time: 131 minutes. Rated R (strong\/bloody violent content, sexual assault, sexual content, nudity and language). In theaters Dec. 19.<\/p>\n
My favorite line from \u201cThe Housemaid\u201d was,\u00a0unusually, not\u00a0spoken by a character who\u2019s actually in the movie.<\/p>\n
During a scene in which new domestic helper Millie, played by Sydney Sweeney, is up late watching TV with her boss\u2019 hot husband, an outraged woman in the theater shouted, \u201cShe\u2019s spilling out of her shirt!\u201d<\/p>\n
The room erupted. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Then,\u00a0Nina, maniacally played by\u00a0Amanda Seyfried, walked in on the cozy pair. Almost as if the lady of the house\u00a0heard the\u00a0loudmouth\u00a0audience member through the screen,\u00a0she\u00a0sternly added, \u201cYou need to dress appropriately from now on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Good luck with that.<\/p>\n
\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJohnny Oleksinski<\/p>\n
Truly every line of this gussied-up pile of trash is worthy of a yelled-out crowd response. It\u2019s one schlocky horror picture show. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
Not that it\u2019s juicy, funny, freaky or even campy enough to become a cult classic for college dorm rooms and a case of PBR. But it passes the time and is never boring. \u201cThe Housemaid\u201d is made to one day autoplay on Hulu while you\u2019re vacuuming.<\/p>\n
Millie (Sydney Sweeney) gets more than she bargained for when she goes to work for Nina (Amanda Seyfried). AP<\/p>\n
The dumbness of the movie from director Paul Feig \u2014 the Archduke of Dumb \u2014 starts off as an asset.<\/p>\n
How can you not laugh when a rich kid who\u2019s practically a child of the corn ghoulishly says, \u201cJuice is a privilege, not something you drink out of a dirty glass\u201d?<\/p>\n
Or when Nina\u2019s elaborately coiffed other half, Andrew (Brandon Sklenar), ogles his live-in employee like she\u2019s got\u00a0bunny ears?<\/p>\n
That mindless mirth stops dead when the film, which has #MeToo messaging, asks to be taken with a modicum of seriousness.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s gore and mutilation, plus a meh-stery Scooby-Doo explanation of the situation that\u00a0comes\u00a0together in flashbacks. You\u2019re basically at remedial \u201cGone Girl.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n
Freida McFadden\u2019s 2022 hit book and the film based on it are both described as psychological thrillers. But that seems off \u2014 like calling \u201cThe Very Hungry Caterpillar\u201d a novella.<\/p>\n
Suburban mom Nina hides dangerous secrets in \u201cThe Housemaid.\u201d AP<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a single\u00a0deep question\u00a0that\u00a0powers the first half of the story: Why would any married woman hire Sydney Sweeney to live and work in her home while sometimes being left alone with her man?<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll give McFadden this: She answers it.<\/p>\n
Millie has been sleeping in her car after getting paroled from prison. The ex-con needs to land a job. Otherwise, she must serve the remaining five years of her sentence.<\/p>\n
Determined, she slaps on a pair of fake glasses and lies her way into the Long Island mini-manse of Nina, who seems nice at first but is really Joan Crawford in \u201cMommie Dearest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t f\u2013k with her, fellas!<\/p>\n
Ex-con Millie must keep her job. Otherwise, she has to go back to prison. AP<\/p>\n
Nina shrieks like a fire alarm when her PTA\u00a0speech\u00a0notes get lost and irrationally blames poor Millie.\u00a0The unhinged monster\u00a0forces her employee, who moves into the\u00a0spooky\u00a0attic, to use a phone she provides and gets into frightening fights with her hubby behind closed doors.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s complicated. Like Millie, Nina has secrets.<\/p>\n
But unlike Sweeney, Seyfried shows skills. Her fraying suburban mom has the same creepy possessed quality of her Elizabeth Holmes in \u201cThe Dropout,\u201d only with a threatening unpredictability.<\/p>\n