This website belongs to Alisson Bento. The adaptation discussed below is another author’s work. A separate, disclosed promotional honorable mention for one of Bento’s books appears after the comparison.
Freida McFadden’s The Housemaid and Paul Feig’s 2025 film share an unsettling premise: a woman hired to live and work in a wealthy family’s house discovers that the household’s polished surface conceals danger. The film adapts the novel but changes several significant scenes, particularly near the end. This guide first introduces the two versions without revealing the central twist, then compares the reported changes under a clearly marked spoiler heading.
The discussion draws on published descriptions, reporting and the director’s interview; it does not claim a first-hand viewing or reading. Spoiler warning: If you want to preserve the mystery, stop before the section marked “Spoilers begin.” The later comparison reveals the central twist, violence and endings of both versions.
The Housemaid by Freida McFadden: the novel behind the feature film
Freida McFadden’s author page identifies The Housemaid as the first book in its series and dates its publication to April 26, 2022. It also describes the specific title as a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller. Those are historical claims about the book, not a claim about its current position on a chart. The page introduces Millie’s employment with the Winchesters, her uneasy interactions with Nina and Andrew, and the small attic bedroom whose door locks from the outside.
The feature film is also called The Housemaid. Lionsgate’s official trailer identifies McFadden’s novel as its source and presents Sydney Sweeney as Millie, Amanda Seyfried as Nina, Brandon Sklenar as Andrew and Michele Morrone as Enzo. Lionsgate’s results announcement identifies December 19, 2025 as the U.S. theatrical release date. Release dates, access and availability in another country can differ; consult the relevant local cinema, retailer or streaming service rather than assuming a particular service currently carries the film.
| Question | Novel | 2025 feature film |
|---|---|---|
| Creator and form | Freida McFadden’s psychological-thriller novel | Paul Feig’s film adaptation |
| Initial situation | Millie takes a live-in job in the Winchester home | Millie takes a live-in job in the Winchester home |
| Main comparison below | How written perspective and the later revelations shape the mystery | How the adaptation changes selected scenes and the final confrontation |
| Content consideration | The author provides a content-advisory link | The U.S. film rating identifies strong violent and sexual material; local classifications may differ |
The shared title can make the two sound interchangeable, but the reader’s choice depends on more than whether the same characters appear. A novel can keep the reader close to a character’s thoughts or withhold a fact through the order in which it presents information. A film can make an image, performance or sound carry that uncertainty. Neither form automatically makes a story more subtle or more faithful; the useful question is what a particular change asks its audience to notice.
A practical starting point without ending spoilers
Choose the novel first if you prefer to meet the Winchesters through prose and discover the shape of the mystery on the page. The author’s description promises a live-in job, a tense relationship with Nina and a locked room, not a conventional workplace romance. If you are choosing an edition, check the language, format and retailer details for the actual copy: a film tie-in cover does not by itself tell you whether the underlying text is abridged or translated.
Choose the film first if a performance-led thriller appeals to you and you would rather encounter the household through actors and visual scenes. A film’s casting also gives particular faces and voices to characters whom a reader might otherwise imagine differently. That is not evidence that one interpretation is the only valid one; it is a difference in the kind of information available to an audience from the start.
If you plan to experience both versions, the order matters because this story depends on a major reversal. Starting with either version may reveal information that the other initially keeps from its audience. There is no spoiler-free way to compare the ending in detail. The safe compromise is to decide whether the initial mystery matters more to you than knowing how the adaptations diverge, then return to the comparison after experiencing the first version.
The film and the book deal with abuse, confinement and violence. The Associated Press film review records the U.S. R rating and its reasons, including strong bloody violence, gore, language, sexuality or nudity, and drug use. McFadden’s book page links to the author’s content-advisory material, which may itself contain spoilers. Those sources are useful starting points, but a rating or summary cannot predict every individual response.
Spoilers begin: what remains shared
Both versions initially encourage an audience to make judgments about the people inside the house. Millie needs the job and a place to stay; Nina’s conduct appears difficult to explain; Andrew seems comparatively approachable. The attic room is not just a sinister decoration. Because its door locks from the outside, a space presented as accommodation can also become a mechanism of control. The same physical arrangement supports the later reversal in both versions.
The basic deception also remains recognizable. Nina’s apparent instability is connected to a plan for escaping an abusive husband. Andrew’s outward charm conceals his violence. Discovering that relationship changes the meaning of earlier behavior, but it does not erase the danger Millie faces. The reveal asks the audience to reconsider the employer they were encouraged to distrust as well as the husband whose appearance of kindness had seemed reassuring.
It is tempting to describe a twist only as a surprise, but the useful comparison lies in what can be reinterpreted afterward. An unsettling incident may initially look like evidence against Nina; later, it becomes part of the audience’s incomplete understanding of the household. The story’s question is not simply “Who is lying?” It is also “Who had the power to make a particular explanation look credible?” That question applies to the novel and the film even when they use different routes to the ending.
This continuity is important when judging the changes. A revised final scene does not automatically mean the adaptation abandons the book’s underlying setup. Conversely, preserving a premise does not make every later choice identical. A reader may value the shared reversal and still find the altered climax meaningful because it changes the timing, location and participants in the story’s resolution.
1. The attic punishment: physical strain on the page and visible injury on screen
Radio Times’ comparison reports that Andrew’s instruction to Millie differs between the two versions. In the novel, he makes her balance heavy books on her stomach for hours. In the film, the punishment involves cuts made with broken china. Both acts occur within a situation of captivity and coercion, but the concrete demands are not interchangeable.
The difference matters for anyone choosing between formats on content grounds. An extended demand for physical strain can be distressing without requiring the same imagery as a scene involving self-inflicted cuts under coercion. The film’s use of broken china places a household object at the center of visible bodily harm. If either kind of material is a boundary for you, do not assume that choosing the other version removes the wider themes of abuse and confinement.
Director Paul Feig discussed expanding the ending and altering the attic material in an interview with The Direct. His explanation is evidence of an adaptation choice, not a rule that visual violence is necessary for a film to communicate danger. A reader or viewer can disagree with his preference while still recognizing what the production changed.
Notice also the relationship between the object and the punishment. In the film account, the broken dish connects a domestic mishap with Andrew’s demand for bodily injury. In the book comparison, the heavy books become instruments of an endurance task. Both scenes turn ordinary objects into tools of power, yet they ask an audience to imagine or see different things. A useful comparison names that distinction instead of reducing it to “the movie is darker.” Darkness is a judgment; the nature of the depicted act is a more concrete basis for a personal decision.
2. How Millie gets out: different means, the same reversal of control
TIME’s ending analysis reports that Millie uses a knife against Andrew in the film and then locks him in the attic. Its comparison says she uses pepper spray in the novel, with the spray connected to Nina’s earlier experience. Both versions reverse who is confined, but they use different objects and different immediate actions to reach that turning point.
That difference can change how the transition reads. A tool introduced through Nina’s earlier experience links Millie’s escape to an element of the household’s history. A knife used in an immediate struggle gives the film’s reversal a different physical shape. These are interpretations of the reported choices, not proof that one version gives either woman more courage or a more legitimate reason to survive.
The practical distinction also matters for a reader deciding what to expect. “She escapes” summarizes the shared outcome but hides how the scene moves from captivity to resistance. “The film replaces the novel’s pepper spray with a knife” is narrower and checkable against the cited account. When comparing adaptations, that distinction between a broad similarity and a verifiable scene change keeps analysis from turning into a claim that every surrounding detail must be identical.
Radio Times also distinguishes the retaliation that follows: Millie makes Andrew pull out four teeth in the book and one in the film. The count is a detail of the scene, not a measure of how much abuse either character deserves or how an actual survivor should respond. Both accounts contain disturbing violence. It is reasonable to use that information to choose a format, skip a scene or decide the story is not for you.
3. Andrew’s death: the book’s locked room and the film’s staircase
The ending changes most clearly in the circumstances of Andrew’s death. In the novel, according to Radio Times, he dies after Millie leaves him locked in the attic; published comparison accounts differ on the precise cause. In the film, Nina comes back, believing Millie needs help. Andrew is still alive, and Millie pushes him from the staircase during a confrontation in which Nina is in danger.
The shared fact is that Andrew dies after the women’s situation has reversed. The difference is that the book’s account locates his death in the locked room and the passage of time, whereas the film stages a later encounter involving Nina, Andrew and Millie. The adaptation therefore changes the scene in which the immediate threat ends, not merely the wording of a final line.
The film’s choice also brings Nina and Millie into the same climactic space. Their actions are not identical: Nina returns to the house, Andrew attacks, and Millie intervenes. The resulting confrontation gives the film an explicit sequence involving both women. That does not prove the novel lacks a meaningful relationship between them; it identifies a particular on-screen event that the cited comparison says the book does not include.
A reader who values the confinement itself as the center of the ending may find the novel’s version a different experience from the film’s active confrontation. Someone seeking a direct encounter between Nina and Andrew may be especially interested in the movie’s structure. Neither preference requires declaring a winner. They are different dramatic arrangements built around the same household and the same revelation about its power structure.
The director has characterized the ending as an expansion. That is useful evidence of the filmmakers’ stated approach, but it should not be confused with a guarantee that every viewer will find the addition satisfying. The important point for this comparison is concrete: the film includes a staircase confrontation and the novel’s reported death occurs in the attic. Whether that change works is a matter for an individual reader or viewer.
The investigation: a different family connection
The versions also change the investigator’s relationship to Andrew’s former fiancée. TIME reports that the police officer in the film is the former fiancée’s sister, while in the novel the investigator is a man and the former fiancée is his daughter. The same report interprets both figures as having reason to suspect more than they choose to pursue. That interpretation should be kept distinct from a claim that the two investigations are identical in every detail.
This is a smaller change in plot mechanics than the death scene, but it affects the family relationship behind the officer’s knowledge. A sibling connection and a parent-child connection are not the same history. Both, as described by TIME, connect an investigator to someone previously involved with Andrew; the adaptation changes the nature of that tie while retaining a personal reason for the officer to view the case through more than the immediate physical evidence.
The distinction gives readers a useful way to think about compression. A film may preserve a character’s narrative function while changing the relationship that explains it. Here, the relevant function is an investigator with a personal link to an earlier fiancée. That observation does not establish why the screenwriter made the change, and it should not be used to invent a production motive. The sources identify what differs; the director’s separate interview addresses his broader approach to the ending.
Enzo and the balance between characters
Enzo, the groundskeeper, appears in the film, played by Michele Morrone. Radio Times reports that his role is reduced compared with the book and describes an intimate connection with Nina in the novel. The source also observes that the film’s ending gives more space to the connection between Nina and Millie. That is a reported comparison of emphasis, not proof that Enzo is irrelevant to every scene in either version.
If you are coming from the film to the novel, a useful question is how additional attention to a supporting character changes your understanding of the plan and the people around it. If you are going in the other direction, look for the way the film allocates the final confrontation among its characters. Those questions invite comparison without requiring a complete inventory of every scene removed or altered.
Be cautious with summaries that turn a reduced role into “the character was cut.” That statement would be inaccurate here: Enzo is in the film. The meaningful claim is narrower and supported by the cited account—his role is smaller than in the book. Likewise, describing an additional bond between Nina and Millie does not mean every aspect of their relationship is safe, simple or free of manipulation.
Which ending should you choose first?
If you want to preserve the maximum uncertainty, choose one version and avoid ending explanations until afterward. If you already know the main twist, the remaining interest can shift from surprise to structure: when information appears, what an audience can infer and what the adaptation does with a character once the secret is exposed. Knowing a broad outcome does not automatically tell you how every scene is presented, but this guide has revealed enough to remove the central surprise.
For readers concerned about the intensity of the film’s attic sequence, check the rating and a detailed content guide before deciding whether to watch. For viewers seeking a novel after the film, the author’s site identifies The Housemaid as the first series book; check each later title’s synopsis rather than assuming the film reproduces its events. A sequel film was discussed in a January 2026 Lionsgate announcement, but an announcement about production plans is not proof of a current release date or availability.
Finally, keep the limits of a comparison in view. The sources linked here support the adaptation relationship, the release information and selected differences. They do not establish every line of dialogue, every scene omitted from the novel or a universal verdict about which version is better. If a particular detail matters to your choice, check the relevant edition or an appropriately labeled review and consider how much more of the plot you want revealed.
For another reading choice, our guide to psychological thrillers with romantic tension compares three books according to the kind of trust problem each presents. That guide focuses on novels; it does not describe all of those titles as films.
Sources and further reading
- Freida McFadden’s book and series page for publication, synopsis, historical bestseller claims and the author’s content-advisory link.
- Lionsgate’s official film trailer and release announcement for the adaptation and U.S. theatrical date.
- Radio Times’ ending comparison and TIME’s spoiler-filled film analysis for the selected reported changes.
- The Direct’s interview with Paul Feig for the director’s explanation of the expanded ending.
