The Housemaid (film): It's decent but the "twist" is executed poorly

Psychological thrillers, when done correctly, are one of my favorite types of movies in existence. I believe that the Koreans are the best at making this sort of film and they are the reason why I get excited when I see that something fits into that category.

The Housemaid does fit into that category but they managed to get the word "erotic" in there as well, which I suppose was always going to be the case when you have Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney in the same lineup.

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Sweeney plays the role of Millie, an out of work grifter of sorts who lives in her car and is desperately trying to seek any sort of employment to get by. It is rather unrealistic that someone as beautiful as her would ever find herself in that sort of position but it's a film and we just have to run with it.

Millie goes for a long-shot job interview to be a housemaid for a younger couple with small child and although she appears to nail the interview she narrates that as soon as they do the background check they are going to pass on hiring her...

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We, the audience, of course know that she is going to get the job because there is no movie without it and sure enough, she gets called back immediately to start work and things start to go a bit badly almost immediately.

This is where the "thriller" aspect of things start to come to the forefront because Nina (Seyfried) starts to behave erratically almost right from the start. Millie will just be going about her job doing the best she can and Nina, out of nowhere, just freaks out on her and starts accusing her of things she didn't do and also sending her on jobs she cannot possibly achieve and then accusing her of being stupid and incapable when she doesn't end up getting the job done correctly.

Nina almost seems to be bipolar in these situations and husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar) has to jump in and come to her rescue on a regular basis to diffuse the situation.

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Things carry on line this for a while and any normal person would quit the job when it is such a hostile work environment but Millie can't just quit because a condition of her parole is that she stays out of trouble and remains employed. Oh yeah, in the time leading up to these moments we are briefly introduced to Millie's parole officer and given a bit of a glimpse into why she is out on parole to being with. Much of this is told to us via narration on the part of both Millie and later on the part of Nina.

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The director and story-writer knew exactly what they were doing when they created sexual situations between all 3 of the main characters and it was always kind of evident that we were headed to a situation where Millie ends up hooking up with the man of the house "Andrew."

At this point in the film I feel as though they had done everything correctly. We don't really know what is going on but we have our suspicions. The not fully knowing is what makes a film great but then they made a terrible mistake that I tend to be quite critical of whenever it appears in any film.

They "tell", don't "show

I will be vague about this but at about the 60 minute mark we, the audience, are treated to what must be around 15 minutes of narration and "recap" of scenes that we either never saw or only saw one side of. There is no way that we could have possibly figured this out and while I understand that this is the very nature of a thriller, the way that they get us to where we "should be" by basically summarizing years of yet-unseen viewpoints with extensive narration and flashbacks, in my mind was kind of lazy and even though the end result is a good film and a decent conclusion (not going to tell you what that is) it all kind of fell flat for me because they basically fast-forward through some extremely major portions of the overall story by just telling us in rapid succession. If you were in the bathroom during those 15 minutes you would have no idea what is going on when you got back.

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_{it is right after this scene that they basically re-write everything that we have seen up to this point}

In the end everything kind of falls together exactly how you expect it to once the real story becomes evident to you and it actually IS a good story but I just really didn't like the way in which they accomplish this by extensive narration by two characters in flash-scenes that redefine everything we have seen up to this point. I find this to be lazy storytelling but since the film pulled down more than $350 million off a budget of $35 million, I guess they got a lot more than they had hoped for.

A sequel is already in the works with 2 of the main characters as well as a minor character who had a lot to do with the main story but we never interact very much with them on screen: Perhaps this was intentional because they had always planned on a sequel.

Should I watch it?

Yes. That's the short answer: It is still a good movie despite my displeasure with how they handled the last 1/3 of the film where much of what we are shown seems rather convenient and kind of impossible at points with all the pieces that had to fall exactly where they did in order for the story to work at all. Things change often in how you view the characters in this film and that is kind of the point with thrillers and for the most part they execute this well. Had they tried to get us all caught up without the narration the film would have been an hour longer than it was so perhaps there was no other way for it to be done.

I stayed engaged the entire way through and never looked at my phone but I will admit that much of this was because there was always some sort of eye-candy on the screen. This isn't one that you have to pay super-close attention to, other than the 15 minutes that take place right after the screaming in the car on the driveway.... make sure you don't miss that!

_{as has become tradition lately, this is not available to stream on any service as part of your subscription. it can be rented or purchased on many of them including Prime and AppleTV. It is rumored to be coming to streaming on rather off-brand services in April, at which point it will likely sit there for a few weeks and then become part of free streaming shortly thereafter. When did streaming become so complicated?}