Sydney Sweeney steps into the role of Millie , a parolee scraping by after a decade behind bars for a manslaughter charge from her teen years.
She lands a live-in gig at the lavish Long Island home of Nina and Andrew Winchester, tending to their young daughter, Cece, and scrubbing surfaces in a mansion that screams old money control.
What starts as a lifeline turns sour fast when Nina’s mood swings hit, from PTA meltdowns to outright mind games that lock Millie in an attic room with a door that bolts only from the outside.
Amanda Seyfried owns the screen as Nina, dialing up the erratic housewife to levels that blend horror absurdity with mean-girl precision. Her performance draws raves for turning potential camp into something genuinely unnerving, outshining Sweeney’s more subdued start before the actress ramps up in the final act.
Brandon Sklenar plays Andrew as the charming husband whose kindness hides sharper edges, fueling the sexual tension that pulls Millie in despite red flags everywhere. Director Paul Feig, fresh off suburban thrillers like A Simple Favor, leans into the genre’s lurid roots with gasp moments that land big in theaters.
Audience reactions exploded online right after release, with crowds laughing at over-the-top dialogue during screenings and praising the film’s unapologetic excess. Rotten Tomatoes shows 75% from critics, but a verified audience score hovering at 92% from over 1,000 reviews, calling it certified fresh and a popcornmeter hit.
Fans of Freida McFadden’s 2022 bestseller pack Reddit threads, debating how the movie captures the book’s slow-burn dread while cranking the visuals for screen impact.
Twists That Flip the Script
The story builds on class clashes, with Millie’s outsider status clashing against the Winchesters’ pristine facade, where every locked door and strict rule hints at deeper traps. Early hints about Nina’s past psychiatric stay and a near-drowning incident with Cece paint her as unstable, while Andrew seems like the steady rescuer.
Millie falls for his attention during a city night out that ends in betrayal, only for the big reveal to shatter assumptions: Nina faked the crazy to bait Andrew’s true abusive nature, hiring Millie precisely because her criminal past makes her the perfect weapon.
The movie changes up the gore and pace from the book, swapping psychological punishments like balancing books on the stomach for visceral body horror that cements the horror shift.
The Housemaid (Credit: Pretty Dangerous Pictures)
A shattered heirloom plate triggers Andrew’s attic lockdown on Millie, demanding she carve lines into her skin with shards to “earn” freedom, a scene that trades book subtlety for screen shock. Cece plays a bigger role too, signaling Nina to rescue Millie, which centers the women and child against the men, unlike the novel’s reliance on groundskeeper Enzo.
That climax delivers chaos: Millie stabs Andrew with a cheese knife, forces him to yank a tooth with pliers, then shoves him down the spiral staircase during a scuffle. Police buy the lightbulb accident cover story, nudged by an officer with ties to Andrew’s violent history.
The close loops back wickedly, with Nina sending Millie, check in hand, to another bruised housewife’s interview, teasing sequel bait from the trilogy.
Why It Hits Despite the Haters
Critics split hairs , with some like Roger Ebert noting it misses full tawdry silliness and feels choppy in edits, while others hail it as a sly nod to old-school thrillers ruling multiplexes.
Detractors gripe about plot holes and Swiss-cheese logic, but that’s the point of this guilty pleasure: it thrives on outrageous pulp, not airtight realism. Box office buzz and high audience scores prove viewers crave the ride, especially with Seyfried’s force-of-nature turn earning Oscar whispers.
Book-to-movie shifts make it pop visually, turning quiet control into loud paranoia, like a police car chase over Millie’s shopping humiliation, absent the novel’s subtler stalking.
This amps accessibility for newcomers, who then hit the page for colder chills, while fans appreciate nods to legacy China over baby clothes cruelty. Social media lights up with theater stories of unintended laughs amid tension, underscoring how the film owns its camp without apology.
At 131 minutes, it balances drama and shocks, confronting abuse head-on yet risking trivialization through excess, per some reviews. Still, the moral slipperiness shines: no pure innocents, just shifting victims and predators in a home where money shields cruelty.
For anyone dismissing it as brainless, the real hook lies in that unease long after the credits roll, questioning facades in everyday privilege. Viewers keep showing up, proving this deranged take delivers thrills that stick, flaws and all.
N ine-year-old Lamia lives in the Mesopotamian Marshes with her grandmother Bibi and pet rooster Hindi, scraping by in 1990s Iraq, battered by sanctions after the Kuwait invasion.
Schools nationwide get orders to bake cakes for Saddam Hussein’s birthday, a compulsory honor that spells trouble for anyone short on basics like flour, eggs, or sugar.
Lamia dodges selection at first but ends up picked anyway, facing school punishment or worse if she fails, since the last family who botched it got paraded through the streets like animals.
Desperate, Bibi drags her to the city to pawn her off as a foster kid for better prospects, but Lamia bolts and links up with street-smart friend Saeed, who pickpockets at a rundown theme park with his dad.
They hawk her father’s watch for cash, dodging shady adults from fake-money dealers to a creepy butcher eyeing more than meat. Bibi roams Baghdad frantically, begging indifferent cops too busy with birthday prep to care about one lost girl, while taxi driver Jasim jumps in to help track her down.
Baneen Ahmad Nayyef nails Lamia with a mix of pluck and panic, carrying the 102-minute runtime through marsh canoes to urban chaos shot vividly by Tudor Vladimir Panduru.
Sajad Mohamad Qasem brings scrappy energy as Saeed, while Waheed Thabet Khreibat grounds Bibi’s worry with quiet strength. Hasan Hadi’s script, co-written with Oscar vet Eric Roth, pulls from his own kid memories of a classmate ruined by a similar flop.
Festival Glory Hits Historic Highs
The world premiere at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight snagged the Audience Award and Caméra d’Or for best debut, the first Iraqi film ever in that section. Sony Pictures Classics snapped up North American rights quickly, kicking off qualifying runs in New York and LA from December 2025 ahead of a wider February 2026 release.
The President’s Cake (Credit: Maiden Voyage Pictures)
Iraq picked it as its Best International Feature entry for the 98th Oscars, landing on the December shortlist with 15 slots from 86 countries, a total first for any Iraqi narrative flick.
Wins piled up after: Golden Starfish for Narrative Feature at Hamptons, plus honorable mention for Nayyef’s breakout; Best Debut at Stockholm; and multiple jury prizes at CineFest Miskolc, including FIPRESCI and Ecumenical nods.
The Hamptons jury praised how it spotlights the dictatorship’s violence through the eyes of a girl trapped between tradition and fear. Sundance Labs and the Doha Film Institute backed the production, with exec producers like Chris Columbus, Marielle Heller, and Eric Roth boosting cred.
Rotten Tomatoes logs 100% from 29 critics, calling it a tragicomic gem with fluent action and poignant empathy for folks in the crosshairs.
The Hollywood Reporter and the Alliance of Women Film Journalists spotlighted Nayyef’s expressive range from joy to heartbreak, plus the film’s astute take on humanity under pressure. State media hailed the shortlist as Iraqi cinema’s resurgence; eyes are now on nominations.
Sweet Bites Hide Sour Core
ScreenRant pegs it as enjoyable and propulsive but flippant with context, churning Italian neorealist tropes for festival crowds over fresh insight.
Everyone from kids to cops seems corrupt or predatory, painting 1990s Iraq as post-2003 chaos with rampant bribes and moral rot that critics say rings false to the era’s tighter controls. Baghdad writer Nabil Salih slammed it in Jacobin for peddling stereotypes of decadent, despotic Oriental hellholes that match Western biases more than real history.
Comic irony shines in Lamia’s clock-racing hustle amid scarcity, blending bleak laughs with real tragedy, yet some darker beats, like the pedophile butcher, tip into heavy territory without full payoff.
Hadi aims to counter negative Iraq views rooted in his southern marshes and Baghdad youth, but inaccuracies let viewers dodge complicity in the sanctions’ toll. The final scenes nod to the constant U.S. shadow, but the bulk stays acidic on locals.
Shot entirely in Iraq with mostly non-pro locals, it captures period details from war fog to birthday parades, yet non-specificity makes the depleted land feel interchangeable.
Lamia’s honest streak crumbles against scams, highlighting regime rot, but the film risks flavorless dessert status by prioritizing uplift over unflinching truth. Still, its resilience yarn hooks, especially for Western eyes new to Iraqi stories, flaws notwithstanding.
