The employee (The Housemaid, United States/2025). address: Paul Feig. script: Rebecca Sonnenshine, based on the novel by Freida McFadden. photo:John Schwartzman. Music: Theodore Shapiro. output: Brent White. Pour: Amanda Seyfried, Sydney Sweeney, Brandon Sklenar, Michele Morrone, Elizabeth Perkins, Indiana Elle. Length of time: 131 minutes. qualificationNote: Only suitable for people aged 16 and over. Distributor: BF Paris. Our opinion: regularly.
“Viral” phenomenon, adaptation of a “fashionable” book, “trending on Tik Tok”. If recommendations begin or end with any of these phrases, warnings of caution and concern are immediately issued. Prejudice? Perhaps. But if – after more than two hours of thriller that could have been solved in less than an hour and a half – the screen confirms suspicions, it is not worth any goodwill.
The employee It’s Millie’s story (Sydney Sweeney), a girl with a complicated past who lives in her car and desperately needs to find a job for legal reasons. She comes to the luxurious house in Winchester with the intention of working as an employee. The family consists of Nina (Amanda Seyfried), her husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar) and little Cece (Indiana Elle). At first it seems like a dream environment, but the homeowner soon reveals herself to be a completely unbalanced woman and makes those around her a permanent victim of her outbursts. Millie wonders “what have I gotten myself into” and faces the impossibility of losing her only chance at salvation through the law. She finds in Andrew the support she needs to move forward, while at the same time she begins to feel attracted to him. The rest is not difficult to imagine, whether you have read the book or not.
And here we go back to the beginning. In The employeethe obsession with not influencing “the viral” destroys any intention to improve on the poor raw material on which it is based. Rebecca Sonnenshine’s screenplay is so closely tied to Freida McFadden’s novel that it misses many opportunities for improvement. On the contrary, he chooses to look the other way and repeat the codes of the “Hot Porn” melodrama of the late 80s and early 90s (Base instincts, fatal attractionor some of those random late night movies The film zone) so the fandom doesn’t get angry. His only “disturbance” is update that to more current discussions such as the role of women in the face of sexist violence, class myopia and various others etc.
The director Paul Feig uses all the everyday things to tell the story. Characters that suddenly appear in the reflection or after a convenient and unnecessary camera movement, voice-overs that hinder the story more than they help (the novel is also full of “first-person” chapters), and a similar structure that even includes the change of point of view in the last third of the story, albeit in a somewhat more summarized manner.
Among the few changes made to the book with the intention of strengthening the female perspective is de-emphasizing the gardener (who on paper is a… affair with Nina) and increased the teenage daughter’s obesity. Furthermore, and perhaps one of the few right decisions, the film opted for a much more explicit, gruesome and bloody ending than that of the novel. A coup d’effect that has been watered down and now contributes much more to the final climax.
Those who find in it The employee As bold, risky and daring films, they are carriers of enormous optimism, which is crucial to enjoying cinema in these times. Those who discover an inconsequential and uninspired transcription of an already inconsequential and uninspired editorial success (as happened to not long ago). 50 shades of gray), they will regret not having found out sooner what they would see.
According to the editorial reviews, there are three other books by The employeeSo the possibility of a film saga remains. You have been warned.
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