The Housemaid

For a thriller starring both Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, The Housemaid is surprisingly lacking in heat or anything resembling eroticism. Sure, we get one sex scene halfway through, but even that seems perfunctory more than adding life into the bewildering thriller that throws out its playbook halfway through, spends 20 minutes speaking directly to the audience setting up an alternative permise, and then finally delivers something more deverting in its final 20 minutes.

Sweeney stars as a recent parolee living out of her car and desperate for a job. Surprised, she's hired by the uber-rich Winchesters (Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar) to look after their house and daughter Cece (Indiana Elle). Every character can be described in one word with Sweeney's Millie being desperate, Seyfried's Nina being crazy, Cece having no more personality than being a kid, and, despite all the attempts of no-name supporting characters to tell us he's dreamy, Sklenar's Andrew is remarkably bland.

It's obvious early on something is deeply wrong in the house, far more than just Nina's extreme bipolar behavior, although it will take The Housemaid awhile to get around to its interesting bits (which only really start once all cards are laid on the table). Honestly, the sequel the ending teases is far more interesting than anything else in the film and could, if handled much better than this one, be something of interest.

• Title: The Housemaid
• IMDb: link