THE HOUSEMAID Review: At Least One Of Them Had A Plan…Sort Of

Introduction

I’m guessing that The Housemaid is a case of the book being better than the movie. I’m guessing this because I haven’t read the book. And I’m also thinking that the book is better than the movie because it’s never a good thing when a movie has to resort to practically reading part of the book to the audience.

Synopsis

Millie (Sydney Sweeney) is a homeless convict out on parole. She’s living out of her car and desperately trying to get a job, a condition of her parole. She interviews for a live-in housemaid job, lying about nearly everything about herself, and is surprised when she’s offered the job. Ecstatic, she agrees to start that day as the new housemaid for the very wealthy Winchester family, comprised of wife Nina (Amanda Seyfried), husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar), and young daughter Cecilia (Indiana Elle).

Quickly, the audience knows something is amiss. When Millie arrives at the house, it’s a complete disaster, looking like Nina has intentionally made the biggest mess possible to elicit a reaction out of Millie. Then, she shows Millie her room in the attic, complete with a door that has two locks, accessible only from the outside.

Millie asks about the locks (and for keys), and Nina claims it was where her husband kept his files. Nina also mentions that Millie can be as loud as she wants in the room because it can’t be heard in the rest of the house. Run Millie. Run away now.

Millie doesn’t run, of course, because without the job, she’s probably going back to jail. Instead, she cleans up the mess, settling into her new job. Unfortunately, Nina freaks out on Millie the next day, accusing her of throwing away her PTA speech.

Andrew intervenes to calm Nina down. This is how the job goes for Millie. Nina is nice to her one moment, and explodes the next. Or Nina tells Millie to do something, then, after Millie does it, claims she never said that. Each time, Andrew steps in to calm down Nina, assuring Millie that all is well. Seriously, Millie. Run away fast.

Discussion

It all comes to a head after one of these incidents ends with Andrew and Millie having sex while Nina is away. When Nina confronts Millie about it, Andrew kicks Nina out of the house, finally at the end of his rope with Nina’s insanity. And this is where the movie comes to a screeching halt for a massive exposition dump.

One of the fundamental rules of screenwriting is show, don’t tell. Up until the point where Nina is driving away toward the house’s gate, the movie was doing a pretty good job of showing. Yes, there is plenty of dialogue, but it’s all organic and helps to further the plot or build characters. They show us Nina’s episodes, Millie’s discomfort, and Andrew’s exasperation. They show us Millie and Andrew kicking the affair into high gear – and I do mean show practically all of Millie and Andrew.

Further Analysis

But then it’s like screenwriter Rebecca Sonnenshine’s plan for the film just stopped dead in its tracks. When Nina stops her car at the gate, the film shows us two very long flashback scenes of two of the characters’ pasts. By itself, that isn’t so bad. But in both flashbacks, each character is literally narrating their backstory, revealing all of the setup that led to Nina hiring Millie, as well as the true purpose of the attic room.

It’s like Sonnenshine had no idea how to show any of this and thought, “What if we just read this part of the book to the audience?” And director Paul Feig went, “nailed it.” That’s not a plan. It’s not even a “pla.”

It’s not like the movie was particularly intriguing to begin with. The reason the exposition dump has to be crammed down our throats is that the scenes leading up to the climax barely even hint at what happens in the climax. All we have to work with is psycho wife, saintly husband, weirdly bitchy seven-year-old Cecilia, and a housemaid constantly wondering if she’s getting fired today.

It’s painfully obvious that Millie and Andrew are going to hook up (not the least of which is because Seyfried and Sweeney are practically dopplegangers). It’s even more obvious that someone is getting locked and tortured (or murdered) in that attic room. And through the whole thing, the audience is wondering who has what plan here.

Conclusion

All of that exposition reveals that one of the main characters did have a plan. But by then, we’ve mostly lost interest. All of the momentum of the film is lost during this forced timeout, and even the quickly amped up climax fails to gain that momentum back. My guess that the book is better than the film is probably correct because books are for telling, not showing.

Rating: Plan to ask for half your money back.

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