“The Housemaid” shows that it is a privilege to have your roots.
“The Housemaid” is the first book of the Housemaid series written by Freida McFadden. The series currently has three books and a short story including “The Housemaid’s Secret”, “The Housemaid Is Watching”, and “The Housemaid’s Wedding”. McFadden has become popular in the last couple of years for her psychological thrillers. “The Housemaid” is her first big-screen adaptation but the second one is coming soon, “The Tenent”. McFadden is a doctor, Harvard graduate and bestselling author. She has sold over 17 million copies of her books. “The Housemaid” was the one that made her a household name. The adaptation hit theaters on December 19 and made 192 million worldwide.
The story follows Mille Calloway (Sydney Sweeney), a new maid for the Winchester family who is excited to land a job with room and board because Mille was living in her car. We found out that Millie has just been released after serving 10 years and is out on parole. She needs to have a place to live and a job to stay on parole and stay out of jail. Since the housemaid position does come with free housing at the Winchester home she is forced by her circumstances to take. Mille is in a vulnerable position and doesn’t have the ability to say no.
The Winchesters are the perfect couple. Nina Winchester (Amanda Seyfried) at first glance seems to be the perfect wife to Andrew Winchester (Brandon Sklenar) and the perfect mom to Cece (Indiana Elle) their daughter. They are young, wealthy and live in a mansion. They are always put together and the viewer can’t help but look for the cracks in their perfection.
The main plot of the film follows Millie discovering those cracks for us. There are lots of disturbing secrets in the Winchester family.
In the book, the first secret is that the housemaids have a secret network of information sharing. Housemaids offer Millie tips, tricks, and advice along with some gossip. The rumors begin small and silly but become scary and life-threatening. In the movie, the rumor sharing group are Nina’s friends who are all rich, married and have children. But it doesn’t seem like they are actually friends. Millie is serving them tea but she is the one about to be served the real tea.The women criticize how Nina should be taking better care of herself because Andrew is the perfect husband. They spill the tea on how Nina spent nine months in a psych ward. They also comment how she should fix up her hair roots for Andrew, along with commenting on how devastatingly hot her husband Andrew is.
When Millie picks Cece up from ballet she is waiting with a group of nannies and they tell her the reason why Nina was in the hospital for mental instability. Nina had tried to drown her daughter, Cece, in the bathtub and then attempted to overdose. Millie starts to investigate and finds Nina’s anti-psychotic medication in the bathroom in the medicine cabinet. Millie is convinced that Nina is dangerous.
Throughout the movie we observe how Andrew seems to be the perfect and most understanding husband to Nina. He rescued Nina and Cece, got them help and support. He is the knight-in-shining armor. We even discover that Andrew is not Cece’s biological father. Nina got pregnant in law school by her professor and had to drop out of school.
The twist in this movie was jaw dropping. If you enjoy a little gory and are looking for a romance but with suspense in it. The movie overall was a great film like nothing I’ve seen before but that also comes with reading McFadden books. If I hadn’t read the book beforehand I would be jaw dropped by the big twist. If you are on the edge about coming to see the movie, you should go out and watch it.
There is one main character difference between the movie cast Nina and book Nina – movie Nina claimed to be pregnant when she met Millie but lied about being infertile. In the book, Nina and Andrew were seeing a fertility specialist and Nina gained weight throughout the whole book. Without spoiling too much, Enzo and Nina’s connection is a big plot that was missed in the movie too. Although in the book we do see more of Enzo’s character, who is the Winchester’s groundskeeper. Enzo is still present in the movie but is there to keep us in suspense of his character’s motives. When Millie first arrives at the house, Enzo told her she had no business being there and she should leave.
Overall, it was a good film but the book is always better than the movie.
