Paul Verhoeven returns to the erotic thriller genre that defined his Hollywood career � and finds a perfectly matched leading lady in Sydney Sweeney, whose blend of vulnerability and steel is ideally suited to this pulpy, provocative adaptation.
Verhoeven Is Back
At 87, Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Showgirls) remains cinema's foremost provocateur. The Housemaid, adapted from Freida McFadden's domestic thriller novel, is exactly the slick, sexy, morally dubious entertainment Hollywood has largely abandoned. Sydney Sweeney plays Millie, a young woman who takes a job as live-in help for the wealthy Winchester family, only to become enmeshed in a web of manipulation, desire, and danger.
"Verhoeven hasn't lost his edge. Sweeney is revelatory � she and Seyfried create one of the year's great screen rivalries."
� Hollywood ReporterSweeney and Seyfried
Amanda Seyfried, as the enigmatic Nina Winchester, gets the film's most complex role and delivers accordingly � switching registers from warmth to menace so quickly you're never sure what you're seeing. Demi Moore's cameo as a society matron is the film's most purely entertaining element. At $145M on $40M, one of the year's most profitable genre films.
The Verdict
Shameless, sharp, and supremely entertaining. Verhoeven directing Sweeney in an erotic thriller is a match made in cinema heaven. Absolutely the former.
Paul Verhoeven returns to the erotic thriller genre that defined his Hollywood career � and finds a perfectly matched leading lady in Sydney Sweeney, whose blend of vulnerability and steel is ideally suited to this pulpy, provocative adaptation.