2025's Greatest Psychological Thriller Gave Us This Scene-Stealing Performance
Marli Messner is a passionate writer who has written for literary magazines, educational zines, and now, Collider. She earned her BA in English Literature with Minors in Creative Writing and Spanish Translation from Knox College. She has won awards for her poetry, creative nonfiction, and literary criticism. She served as Co-Editor-in-Chief for Knox College's Catch magazine. Marli is a letterpress hobbyist, former theatre kid, and current poet.
Her background in theory and literature lends a thoughtful edge to her writing. She loves convincing her friends that unexpected movies, like Predator, are "actually really sophisticated." She's interested in all things horror, sci-fi, and action. Her favorite film is Alien.
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The Housemaid hit theaters in December 2025 and critics didn't quite know what to make of it. The Housemaid is schlocky, pulpy, and some moments feel like they're just excuses to get a sex scene with the lead, Sidney Sweeney as Millie Calloway. The Housemaid is undeniably fun and thrilling, however, and as the movie takes a dark turn, it becomes crystal clear that the real star was Amanda Seyfried the entire time.
As the film takes its turn from steamy mystery to heart-pounding thriller, Seyfried shines as Nina Winchester. The sequel, The Housemaid's Secret, is coming in 2027, but without Amanda Seyfried. The rest of the production will need to work double-time to compensate for her absence. Seyfried gives a powerhouse performance in The Housemaid as a neurotic housewife, at least on par with her iconic, early-career roles in movies like Mamma Mia, Mean Girls, and Jennifer's Body. Amanda Seyfried's performance holds the entire film together, not least because her character is the one who's really pulling the strings.
'The Housemaid' Sets Up and Then Subverts Thriller Tropes
Seyfried delivers a modern Blanche Dubois, at times fragile and pitiable, at others volatile with a dark, mysterious past. But after the film's turn into the third act, the flighty housewife shows her true colors as a clever, scheming escape-artist. It's revealed that Nina Winchester, who was rumored to have attempted to kill her daughter during a psychotic break, has really been suffering the abuse of her charismatic husband, Andrew (played by 1923 star, Brandon Sklenar), who framed her for the attempted murder and convinced everyone that she was crazy. But Nina Winchester proves she's no soft-suffering Dubois. Through a carefully orchestrated scheme, she replaces herself with Sydney Sweeney's Millie as the target of her husband's affection, and drives Andrew to break up with her, freeing her of the abuse.
Like A Streetcar Named Desire and so many sexy thrillers after it, the real horror of The Housemaid is domestic violence. Relationship abuse is about control, and the thing that makes The Housemaid so clever is that control seems to continually shift and reveal itself to be in the hands of someone unexpected. The pace of revelation keeps the audience and characters alike on their toes. For the sequel, Rebecca Sonnenshine will adapt the script from the novel, as she did for the first film. Seyfried sells the hell out of Sonnenshine's writing, but the script is clever and well constructed on its own.
Amanda Seyfried Is in Total Control
Seyfried plays the twists and turns of the film impeccably, delivering a kaleidoscopic performance that leaves the viewer in constant doubt of who has control. The writing is certainly to credit for that, but without Seyfried's performance it wouldn't be half as captivating or thrilling. The key to Amanda Seyfried's performance is its absolute naturalism. Even when her behavior is bizarre, it's entirely convincing, making use of hyperrealistic patterns and behaviors. The performance is so rich because of the complex layers of masking and performance the character herself is partaking in, and Seyfried knows how to make full use of that complexity.
Collider Exclusive · Villain Personality Quiz Which Criminal Mastermind Would Be Your Nemesis? Lecter · Joker · Moriarty · Chigurh
Four of the finest criminal minds ever put on screen. One of them would look at you and see something worth their time. Eight questions decide which one comes for you, why they picked you, and what they would want when they arrived.
🍷Lecter
🃏Joker
♟️Moriarty
🪙Chigurh
01
What would a criminal mastermind notice about you first? Great villains choose their opponents carefully. Something about you got their attention.
02
How do they make first contact? The introduction tells you everything about what is coming next.
03
What do you actually believe about right and wrong? Every nemesis is really an argument about the thing you believe most.
04
What finally gets under your skin? Everybody has a pressure point. Finding yours is the whole plan.
05
They have made their move. How do you fight back? This is the part of the film where the audience finds out who you are.
06
What would they use against you? A good villain never brings a weapon you have not already handed them.
07
What do they actually want from you? The money is never the point. Something else always is.
08
How does it end between the two of you? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides who comes for you.
The Case File Is Complete Your Nemesis Is…
Four criminal masterminds. One of them was always going to be yours. Here is who comes for you, why they picked you out of everyone available, and what they want from the encounter.
Hannibal Lecter
Your nemesis does not want to beat you. He wants to know you completely, and he is patient enough to wait for it. The frightening part is how good the conversation is.
- Lecter is the most dangerous kind of opponent: the one who finds you interesting. He never raises his voice, because he has never needed to.
- You keep a great deal to yourself and you are careful about what you show. That reserve is exactly the door he would knock on.
- The films understood something other thrillers missed. The horror is not the violence. It is being perfectly understood by the wrong person.
- He would be unfailingly polite about all of it. That is the worst part.
The Joker
Your nemesis is not after money, territory or revenge. He is after a demonstration, and you are the person he has chosen to prove his point on.
- The Joker only picks opponents who believe in something. Your decency is not a defence against him. It is the entire reason he showed up.
- He has no plan you can predict and nothing you can take away, which removes every tool you would normally reach for.
- His whole argument is that you are one bad day away from being him, and you would spend the rest of your life proving him wrong.
- He would call it a magic trick. You would call it the worst night of your life.
Moriarty
Your nemesis respects you, which sounds flattering until you work out what it means. He chose you because nobody else was worth his time.
- Moriarty is the original criminal mastermind, the template every later one borrows from: a mind the equal of the hero's, pointed the wrong way.
- You enjoy being the cleverest person in the room. He is counting on exactly that, and he has already built the room.
- This is the rare nemesis who would be genuinely disappointed if you lost badly. He needs the game to be worth playing.
- It ends the way these things always end. Two people, one problem, and only one way down.
Anton Chigurh
Your nemesis has no personal interest in you whatsoever, and that is precisely what makes him unsurvivable. You are not a rival. You are a stop on the way.
- Chigurh does not negotiate, gloat or explain. He arrives, he asks one question, and the answer was decided long before you opened your mouth.
- You trust yourself to handle things. He is the one problem in the world that has no interest in how capable you are.
- No Country for Old Men rewrote the screen villain by removing the thing audiences quietly rely on: the sense that talking might work.
- Call it. He will wait.
So much of the pleasure of The Housemaid is about watching Seyfried peel back the layers of own character, unraveling and rebuilding herself before your eyes. First, she's a perfect, sweet, wealthy housewife. Then, she's a snippy, controlling, neurotic mistress of the house, doling out harsh punishments, unreasonable demands, and facilitating Millie's degradation. Then, her history is revealed as the long-suffering victim of her husband's torture and control. Finally, her scheme is revealed, and she's shown to be a supremely clever, resourceful woman who knows the game she's found herself in and knows how to play it. But all of that is just plot. Seyfried took this sleazy, pulpy movie and saw the humanity in the character at its center.
Without Seyfried, Sweeney Has Her Work Cut Out For Her in 'The Housemaid's Secret'
Seyfried clearly understands the ways people mask, perform, and protect themselves. Seyfried plays Nina's trauma and resulting fragility with a sharp eye for the ways psychological violence can break a person down. On top of that, she plays Nina's intentional deceptions and schemes fiercely, never flinching from being detestable or ferocious, embracing complexity. The troubling thing about Nina is that she sees the ways that Millie is vulnerable to abuse and takes advantage of them, much like her husband did to her. She does this to get herself and her daughter out of a terrible situation, but she knows she's putting Millie at risk to do so. Nina is no villain, but it's hard to call her a hero. Seyfried plays into this duality in a remarkably truthful performance. She's fully embodied in everything from her walk and posture to micro-expressions.
Amanda Seyfried is a powerhouse, carrying the success of The Housemaid. Without her, The Housemaid's Secret risks losing the complexity that made it so successful. While Sweeney has a perfectly good performance in The Housemaid, especially given the subdued, casual persona of her character, she has put out much more commanding performances before. One example was in the similarly-themed Christy, the biopic of boxer Christy Martin and her abusive relationship with her coach. Though Christy was a box office failure, Sweeney's performance received critical acclaim. Sweeney can certainly act, and The Housemaid's Secret promises to reveal Millie's layers. One can hope it will yield a richer, more embodied performance for Sweeney, and a movie that doesn't need Amanda Seyfried's magnetism to succeed.
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