The Housemaid

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The twisty psychological thriller The Housemaid was a huge bestseller, so it was only a matter of time before it was turned into a film. And it's quite the movie. Sydney Sweeney plays a newly hired live-in housekeeper to Amanda Seyfried's wealthy housewife. But both women have dark secrets and their employer-employee dynamic goes downhill real fast.

It's directed by Paul Feig, who's made movies like Bridesmaids and A Simple Flavor, so you know it's going to be a bizarre, very fun ride. I'm Aisha Harris, and today we're talking about The Housemaid on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. This message comes from NPR sponsor Adobe. Introducing the all-new Adobe Acrobat Studio, now with AI-powered PDF spaces. Need to turn 100 pages of market research into 5 insights with a click?

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Listen to Wait Wait on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Joining me today is Jordan Cruciola. She's a writer and producer and the host of the podcast Feeling Seen on Maximum Fun. Hey, Jordan. Hello, thrilled to be here on the Paul Feig beat today. Yes, welcome, welcome. Also with us is Vulture TV critic Roxana Haddadi. Hey, Roxana. Hello, thank you for having me. Yes, I am so excited to talk about this movie.

It's going to be, especially with you two, this is going to be very fun. So yeah. In The Housemaid, Sidi Sweeney plays Millie, a young woman with a checkered past and who's struggling to make ends meet. She lands what seems like a pretty clutch gig as a live-in housekeeper for wealthy couple Nina and Andrew Winchester, played by Amanda Sutherland.

Cy Fred, and Brandon Sklenar. Now, it doesn't take too long before the dream job becomes a nightmare, though, because Nina is very unpredictable and prone to violent outbursts. I have to get up and do a speech in front of everybody, and now I have nothing! Oh, and to complicate things even further, there's definitely some heat between Millie and Andrew. As Nina's behavior grows more and more erratic, though, things spin out of control, secrets are revealed, and Millie has to fight for her life.

Yes, this movie. I love it. It's in theaters now. Roxanna, I'm going to start with you. Yeah. Give me your first impressions of The Housemaid. It started with me being like, what is this even? It is not working for me. And then there was a point like a third of the way through where I was like, actually, this is genius filmmaking and maybe we should make new Oscars for what it is.

happening but like i'm very susceptible to this sort of thing right like i really liked the hunting wives i liked sirens we sort of had this resurgence of sort of like High camp, high trash TV this year. The girlfriend, all her fault. I'm going to keep going. I feel very fond of this genre, I think. And I really enjoyed.

I feel like sort of like the women's domestic thriller got very... self-serious and somber for a while which I understand because the genre is often dealing with like domestic violence and domestic abuse and a lot of the difficulties of having it all like I understand all of that but I do think that there is a certain amount of very dark humor in this movie that I found to be very fun. And once it had sort of won me over, it had like... fully I love to hear it Jordan the housemaid thoughts

As someone who put together an entire, like, capsule podcast dedicated to a simple favor, this is Paul Feig operating in my favorite mode of his. Even as good as The Heat and Bridesmaids and Spy are. This is my favorite Paul feat. paperback airport novel Paul Feig with, like, ladies at the center doing harm to each other in inventive and at times homoerotic ways. Watching this movie...

in a theater was so much fun. Coming at the end of a year, right when we're about to get The Testament of Anne Lee. Yeah. Amanda Seyfried could be...

In Oscar contention for both, honestly. Those eyes are telling two such incredibly different stories. You are seeing the dynamic nature of an Oscar-caliber actor right before our eyes. And after the year that Sidney Sweeney had... had to close it out with the perfect lane for Sidney Sweeney to exist in feels like getting the kick in at the end of the run at the track meet and closing it down to end up on the podium.

Somehow Brandon Skelnar is what I think I had always thought Scott Eastwood might be. Yes, they have the same face. It's so unnerving. Yeah, the promise of that kind of... I wasn't sure if what he was doing was working for me in the movie. and then a pivotal point happens and I was like, it's all fallen into place for me. So, chemistry, magic, madness.

I'm all in. Five baggers. Cinema. Jordan said cinema. Cinema. Yes. Yes. This is a movie that absolutely benefits from being seen with a bunch of people. We always talk about the blockbusters. It's like, oh, you want to.

on a big screen because it's visually set. No. Sometimes you just want to see a movie where other people are going to make the same noises that you are when something weird happens. Yes. Who are going to laugh at the same stuff that you do. Yeah. The press screening I went to was like a mixed.

press and public screening, heavily women. And I just, A, found this movie so much more... effective and entertaining and even moving and the crowd was having such a good time that it is the kind of thing where you're like We used to have these in the 90s. Like we used to have a lot of these in the 90s. We did. And this is my embrace tradition. Return to your roots.

I'm a cinema traditionalist. 100%. Yes. If you just want to like text a lot of friends you haven't hung out with in a while, The Housemaid is the way to do it. Yes. Oh my goodness. Yes. This was exactly what I wanted and what I needed. I love these types of movies. And I think you both are so right that there's this idea that this kind of movie needs to be a little bit more serious and more grave as it is about.

what it really means. And I think sometimes we need that escapism and to go back to the era of... Your fatal attractions and those types of things. Like, I want that. Give me a bunny boiler. Give me a bunny boiler. Yes, yes. We don't get a bunny boiler, but we do get China. Like, pieces of China. Yeah.

family heirloom that is very crucial to plot points in this movie. But I do want to talk about the Sidney Sweeney of it all because I had this sort of same thought going into it, Jordan, of like this being kind of perfect for her. And, I mean, let's just talk about the way her career has gone this year. Yeah. You know, she appeared in a controversial ad campaign for American Eagle earlier this year with the tagline, Sydney Sweeney has great genes.

Jeans as in denim. Sure. But it caused an uproar because the ads were using wordplay that evoked eugenics. bluntly speaking. It also surfaced this year that she's a registered Republican voter in Florida. And so you've got that. And then her boxing biopic movie, Christy, which...

has been clearly her play. Like, if Testament of Anne Lee is Amanda Seyfried's play for Oscar, like, Christy is kind of Cindy Sweeney's. And that did poorly at the box office, some say, because she gave this sort of non-answer about her jeans ad. view with GQ. And then also her like her perceived political alignment. So this idea that we're like assigning something to her personal life has maybe affected.

her box office chances. That's what they're saying. So now she's like addressed the campaign directly. I was going to forget about this. I don't know about you. I was kind of like, okay, whatever. I forgot about it. But now she has this movie that she's trying to promote and she did an interview with people.

Magazine, where she said, quote, I don't support the views some people chose to connect to the campaign. Many have assigned motives and labels to me that just aren't true. And she also added, I'm against hate and divisiveness. Okay, so after seeing The Housemaid, which is something I find interesting because some people are very focused on her personal life and her supposed political alignments. But then the movie she's in... tend to be these types of movies that are very much like, if not...

flat-out feminists. They are about women sort of overcoming the patriarchy. I even think of, like, the Nun movie that she did. Immaculate! Immaculate, yes! If all the registered Republicans in Hollywood, of which there are many, y'all, want to make independent movies about... domestic abuse surviving lesbians who are also boxers, like, then I would be happy for them to channel their tax cut money into that kind of forum. But Sydney Sweeney...

I think in terms of a Hollywood element of a screen presence, she is so good in this. She is so good in Immaculate. She is so good as Cassie in Euphoria. And she is really good in the movie The Voyeurs. Yeah, The Voyeurs. is good oh i totally forgot about that movie sydney sweeney is great and also a dime store a paperback airport movie

exploitation thriller. I would love to see her commit to this lane. I think she's absolutely got a go for it in her that is really suitable for, yes, and the physical packaging that comprises, like, the totality of Sidney Sweeney fits really well. well in this space as well, and she knows that too, which is why she takes these roles and plays them to the hilt the way that she does in pure terms of screen presence.

I think there was role selection that was a bit out of step for what's in her wheelhouse. So, you know, a movie like Eden, I don't know if that's something where she's like the best fit, but something like this, give me drama, give me screams, give me thrills, give me what the Hunting Wives audience. wants because that is who I am and that is what I want. Yeah. I mean, Roxanna, what say you? I mean, I do think there is something to be said that

We're talking about this movie and this kind of movie, and we're not really talking about Christy. And I don't think Christy was the right movie for her. I never fully bought into her playing that. But I can also understand being young and wanting to stretch.

attempt to stretch your chops yeah i mean like her personal or political life or whatever is like a black hole upon which we project many things my personal feeling about her as an actress is i think that she has a limited range that in this film is perfect for what this film is asking her to do exactly she's playing A young woman who is unhoused, does not have any job opportunities, has a quick temper.

And I think all of that comes through really well in the characterization of like this young woman who seems pretty aimless, clearly has sort of a moral... core but honestly is like pretty reactive and pretty passive yeah this is not meant to be an insult i'm so sorry but she's very good at that sort of like dead-eyed And that sort of like very deadpan line delivery. And for this film, which is asking Amanda Seyfried to do huge over the top.

like mood swing acting, having Sidney Sweeney be the blank quote unquote normal character for a long time in this movie. is super effective to get the contrast between the two of them. Which, again, I do want to insist, like, in my eyes, is limited. Yes. But in this kind of lane, it is... Yeah. And I think it's the most self-aware performance from her that I've seen. Yeah. There's not a problem with being...

a specific talent. Yeah. Oh, yeah. To compare her talent to that of, like, and Amanda Seyfried and be like, these two actors should be the same thing is absolutely not the case. And you look at what Paul Feig did in a simple favor, bringing us the best performance of Blake Lively's career and tap...

into something that someone who, in the Simple Favor podcast that we had, Blake Lively, said in her own words, being like, I'm not Meryl Streep. For me, it's the costumes and all the finishings and the touches that really help me bring out a specific character.

she's aware of the lane that she occupies. In a similar case to, like, a Blake Lively, Sydney Sweeney is very aware that the physical presence that they have, like, the way they present these stunning white women, I'm not crying for these rich, very well-off white women, who are doing fine.

they are aware of the perception of them. And you have the choice to either go along completely with perception in a sort of complicit way. You have the choice to wink, wink, nudge, nudge, play within it, which is a really difficult line to walk, which I think is what Sidney accomplishes in something like this.

something like Voyeurs especially, or you have the choice to buck against it and be like, that's not me. I'm not that girl. Because you do want to defy the box that you are being put in because Hollywood still loves a box. If that is not your journey, if that's not...

path to break out of that box that you're being put in and really find that kind of thriving success in a more dynamic sort of career, then you're going to have some slings and arrows as you learn the hard way that that's maybe not necessarily the most beneficial choice for your career decisions, your role choice.

Listen, it would be cool to be super hot for a couple days, but I honestly wouldn't want the life because that's the sort of celebrity that you don't get a pick when you turn it on and turn it off. I would probably get really frustrated with the way that people were coming at me with the presumption.

and access to who I am. And I'd be like, well, I'm going to show you. And I would probably make some decisions that weren't probably in line with what I was best at in this world because I was going to try to prove to other people that I wasn't just this hot body shell. Because that probably sucks. That probably sucks. And so you're like, I'm going to be...

lesbian boxes with a mullet. And like, I get that. I get that. I mean, she's still young, right? She's not even 30 yet. Yeah. Younger than Timote, right? Younger than Chalamet. I think we always forget that Chalamet is a little older, like within this realm of new Hollywood. Yes, and younger than Zendaya, too. So it's...

I agree with everything you've said about this. And I would also throw someone like Dakota Johnson in here where I'm just like, you are very good at one specific thing. And when you're cast against that, I'm like.

Maybe not, but I'm not going to fault them per se for like trying to do that because why wouldn't you try to do that? I do want to talk more about sort of Amanda Seyfried because I do think that she does have the harder. role here because this is a very big performance. And she's so good at it. She can really dance that line.

There are so many twists and turns in this movie. And, you know, some of them, as someone who's watched many of these, even though I haven't read the novel that this is based off of, I kind of saw them coming. But nevertheless, I was still very, very just... enraptured with the way this performance plays out and the way that Paul Feig

really just kind of plays up how silly all of this is. This is the type of movie I feel like once you realize this is deliberately silly in many ways. Like there's so many moments where there's jump scares where all of a sudden... Amanda Seifert's character is just, like, standing there, like, behind the mirror. And it's like, oh! And it's, like, very, it's very... Yes. She's just looming.

ghostly energy. Yeah, looming, a looming Amanda Seyfried. There's the creepy groundskeeper Enzo. Yes. He's played by Michele Morone. Their dynamic is very great. Famously of the Megan Fox Fembot movie that came out last year in which he played like, you know, just... the helpless dad that Megan Fox had to come in and help domestically. He's been here before. He knows a housemaid situation. Yes, he has Elaine, too, and he's sticking to it. I love it. What do we think of sort of this dynamic?

between Amanda Seyfried and Cindy Sweeney and how that kind of plays with expectations, I think, without getting too much into spoilers because this does get very twisty. But I found it... very enjoyable and very satisfying the thing that is very smart about this movie and it might be this way in the novel too which i have not read but what the movie does so well is it takes all these like very recognizable

like tropey elements of this genre at this point and like winks at you the whole time the groundskeeper That is just sort of like staring through windows and like maybe spying on these women. Like that's very unclear. The gaggle of like... awful neighborhood moms. Paul loves a gaggle of moms. Pick a little, talk a little. Yeah. And they're just like gossiping the whole time.

Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I really thought she was pregnant. We were all thinking it. I mean, have you seen her skin? And how about those roots? My god, you think she would take better care of herself for Andrew? The fact that the... daughter that Sidney Sweeney's character is now sort of expected to babysit doesn't like her at all. No shoes on the furniture.

She's so great. I wrote in my notes she makes great shady faces. She's played by Indiana L. Yeah, she makes wonderful shady faces. She makes Sydney Sweeney's character make her a bologna sandwich and then is like, I'm not hungry. Like all of these things.

are if you've even read like one of these books you're completely aware of like oh these are all the puzzle pieces and eventually they will be rearranged into something really interesting and I do think that as we talked about like Sweeney being so passive and amanda doing so much it is this great like push pull

conflict, contentious energy. So then when the movie flips, you then realize that their dynamic has to flip. And I think that's like where the genius of the contrasting performances is, I do want to say there's this moment where... Amanda Seyfried's character is in her SUV and she's doing a classic move that we all recognize where she goes from sobbing maniacally to laughing maniacally. And it takes like a certain kind of actor.

to pull that off but i remember watching that and being like could this woman be joker like could we like what kind of villainy could we put this woman in and i thought that was really fun

Let's not forget she played Elizabeth Holmes. Yeah, she should have won every award for that. So I also think that she is just sort of like... I mean, obviously she is A-list, but I think she's the kind of actress who can do so much. And it's interesting that this sort of like B-movie genre film... paired with Testament of Anne Lee, finally feels like the moment where you're like, oh, like, Mean Girls and...

Veronica Mars star Amanda Seyfried has the range, and I just think that's really fun. Yeah. An actress she reminds me the most of that I think is very, very established, just like sort of A-list in the mind, is Julianne Moore, who also, if there's one person... whose filmography is balanced between prestige dazzle you and absolute junk dazzle you. It is Julianne Moore. Her curation is so broad in her career. They meet in the middle.

In the movie Chloe. Yeah. In the bisexual sexploitation movie Chloe. There are like the two wolves that are within you. It's like watching a movie like Chloe and watching a movie like, you know, say even Jennifer's. body where Amanda Seyfried is the straight man character to the more vamped up Megan Fox.

Amanda Seyfried has been on the opposite side. She has been the Sidney Sweeney in this dynamic. In another, like, girl two-hander, sort of pulpy genre movie of this sort of sort. It makes me so happy to watch an actress getting... older and having cooler opportunities that are higher profile that showcase like the quiet choices she's been making to smaller audiences for a long time. That's an arc that just makes my heart sore. Yeah. Yeah. I feel.

like anytime I see Amanda Seyfried is going to be in a movie I'm going to be in good hands like it doesn't really matter what kind of role she's playing she's just always going to be that good I love this. If you bought Big Love stock, y'all, we are cashing in. It is cashing in. I think that is the perfect way to end this.

episode. Tell us what you think about The Housemaid. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash pchh and on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com slash nprpopculture. We'll have a link to that in our episode description and go see it in the theater. Okay. And that brings us to the end of our show. Jordan Cruciola, Roxanna Haddadi, thanks so much for being here. This was, as always, a delight. What a thrill. A perfect thrill. Yes, thank you.

This episode was produced by Liz Metzger, Kayla Lattimore, Mike Katzoff, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Come In provides our theme music. And thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Ayesha Harris, and we'll see you all next time. On NPR's Wildcard podcast, Kumail Nanjiani talks about his creative collaboration with his wife. What makes a good partnership between me and Emily is that, you know, we write together. We get notes from executives.

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