The bestselling book ‘The Housemaid’ by Frieda McFadden was recently adapted into a Hollywood blockbuster movie starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried as the two female leads, a fierce and independent women fresh out of jail for murder and a sweet yet bi-polar wife with frequent mood swings. ‘The Housemaid’ was esteemed thriller author Frieda McFadden’s first movie adaptation after several bestselling mystery novels.
As a longtime fan of Frieda McFadden, my mom (who was excited to see her favorite author get a huge deal movie adaptation) and I went to theaters to criticize and critique the movie. I was excited to see the familiar face of Amanda Seyfried cross the screen as Nina Winchester, the misunderstood and struggling wife of Andrew Winchester, successful and beloved businessman, played by Brandon Sklenar. Though the casting was small in size, I thought that it was successfully done considering the descriptions of the characters in the book and the depictions onscreen. I enjoyed the casting of the daughter, Cece, as Indiana Elle, although in my imagination Cece was much younger than portrayed in the movie, but Indiana played a great snobbish, stuck up seven year old.
Despite recent conflicts with Sydney Sweeney, I actually enjoyed her casting as Millie, solely because Sweeny deeply leaned into her bold, harsh side and outlined Millie’s slightly sadistic streak while experiencing the difficulties in the movie. While learning how she ended up in jail, how she got on parole, how she ended up homeless, and then became the housemaid of a wealthy family, Sweeney portrayed the role of Millie as well as I’d hoped.
For the majority of the movie I felt that it was for the most part correctly portrayed, aside from the ending, which was changed to fit a more Hollywood feel, but even the changed ending had the same effect as the original book’s ending. The book, however, had a more eerie, mysterious feel throughout the entire story, but the movie was much more bright and upbeat and could’ve done with more clues and mysteries throughout the beginning and middle of the movie. Despite the changed ending and upbeat feel, ‘The Housemaid’ was an overall successful adaption and I did enjoy it, although I did wish they’d stuck to the original movie details rather than changing some.
