Making quality trash requires commitment. If you don't hold your nerve, you'll either slide into overt parody, or start thinking your audience wants you to get serious - both of which are usually fatal. Keep the story moving, play it straight, don't worry about any of it making sense, and you'll have a decent chance of coming up with a winner.
If would-be housemaid Millie (Sydney Sweeney) seems too good to be true, that's because she is. Her application for a job as a live-in servant is a work of fiction, leaving out such vital details as "currently lives in car" and "is on parole for murder". At least she got $20 travel money for turning up for the interview... oh, and then she gets a call: she's got the job.
As bosses go, Nina Winchester (Amanda Seyfried) seems pretty much perfect too. She's charming and approachable, the house is massive and spotless, and while her daughter isn't exactly a bundle of joy, who cares when you can use the massive TV room any time you like? Millie has finally landed on her feet, roll credits, well done everyone.
Then Nina turns out to be a complete psycho, with moods that come and go on a whim, demands that are way over the top, and orders she later pretends she never gave, seemingly just to make Millie look bad. Millie can't afford to lose this job, but the conditions are pushing her out the door - only Nina's husband, the hunky and cashed up Andrew (Brandon Sklenar) provides any relief from the abuse.
Meanwhile, there's a brooding gardener (Michele Morrone) who seems to know more than he's letting on, Nina's "friends" are all backstabbing bitches badmouthing her the second she's out of the room - supposedly she's got a history of mental illness and Andrew's a living saint for not kicking her broke ass to the curb - and Andrew's interest in Millie seems to be moving beyond the professional. And what's the deal with the tiny soundproof upstairs bedroom Millie sleeps in that only locks from the outside?
It's no spoiler to reveal that things are Not What They Seem, though this does do a decent job of scattering red herrings around so it's never all that clear what twist is coming next. And the big twist is a little wobbly; while clearing one character of bitchiness in one direction, they turn out to still be pretty nasty in another way, though eventually they get around to righting that wrong as well.
Sweeney is fine, though she struggles a little with a character who's required to be fairly passive for long stretches early on - the less she's doing, the less interesting she is. Seyfried does a lot of the work here, chewing the scenery hard early on before having to dial it down a bit later on to give a slightly more subtle but still interesting performance. Basically, there's always someone worth watching here, with Sklenar doing a good job as the fantasy stud who turns out to have a little more going on than it first seems.
Director Paul Feig (A Simple Plan) plays this adaptation of Freida McFadden's novel pretty much note-perfect, slowly ramping up the campy thrills and taking this from a relatively straight thriller - aided by Seyfried's at times unhinged performance - to something a lot wilder and smarter. There's even some legit sexiness mixed in as well, which is not something you expect to see in a mainstream US film in 2025.
Special shout-out to Elizabeth Perkins, in the small but pivotal role of Biggest Bitch Alive, aka Andrew's mother. This kind of story doesn't have to have an awful mother who's horrible for no reason lurking around somewhere, but it's always a sign of quality when they do. Generational trauma can be murder - but then again, so can pretty much everything else.
- Anthony Morris
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