Millie (Sydney Sweeney) is the protagonist of The Housemaid, a film within a perpetual winter. I mention the seasons because they don’t change, and yet she’s already familiar with her boss’ family. That boss is Nina Winchester (Amanda Seyfried), whose neuroatypical behaviour makes the home a hostile workplace. Millie comfortably makes snide comments about Nina. She does this for the latter’s husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar), driving them together. She and Andrew have an affair, which gives him the courage to tell Nina to leave. Nina, a neuro-atypical woman without a prenup, is at a disadvantage after Andrew leaves her for Minnie. But her departure shakes up the dynamics of the Winchester home where people aren’t who they seem.

Comedy has the same beats and structure as any genre, including thrillers like this with many setups. Its fictional world insists on its own rules so that things can happen in one way instead of the other. Cecilia (Indiana Elle), Nina’s daughter, is a more tolerable example of this fictional world’s rigidity. Enzo (Michele Morrone) is the house’s groundskeeper who is just as hot as Andrew and hooking up with him makes for a lesser headache. But he is way too conveniently ethnic and grumpy for Millie to hook up with. Again, it’s like the film insists on Millie to end up with Andrew even if yes, these situations happen. Also, why are there only three cops in The Housemaid and its fictional town outside New York City? Two of those cops, by the way, are white, and are the only cops who can speak to Sydney Sweeney.

The Housemaid comes from genre versatile Paul Feig, who mostly makes movies about troubled women. Someone will write a thesis about how Paul Feig depicts leading ladies but that someone isn’t me. Even with his brand of feminist allyship,  his work is too inconsistent to warrant any heavy effort. There are worse directors but it seems like he’s adapting a source material that wants female characters to suffer. Or in this case, it’s a female character receiving suffering from her fellow woman, which happens. But that person inflicting that suffering is Nina, who is a kabuki version of a ‘crazy’ white woman. Amanda Seyfried seems game to play Nina, but the makeup choices to make her look older are bad.

The Housemaid‘s premise has Millie living with the Winchesters, and I get that Millie is unhoused. Nonetheless, I am not taking a job offer where I don’t have a key to my own room. I am also not taking a job where my boss is breaking her plates all over the place. The film doesn’t explain why Millie needs her job with the exception of her obtuse narration. Also, no one talks like a person, which is usually what happens when a film is hiding something. I get that camp is part of thrillers but there’s a way to make camp grounded in reality. But this film’s methods of storytelling make that twist about Nina way too obvious for me. Obvious is, finally, another word to describe the pop girl needle drops in this film.

Also, a shout out to Sydney Sweeney’s fans – if you like her so much, maybe watch The Housemaid or any of her movies in theatres or something.