The Housemaid, Feig’s latest thriller, adapted from Freida McFadden’s bestselling novel, is yet more proof that I like Feig as a director more in theory than in practice. It is, unfortunately, pretty average in almost every department, and then still somehow less than the sum of those parts. The film follows Millie Calloway (Sydney Sweeney), who is trying to scrape together a fresh start when she takes a housemaid job for a wealthy couple, Nina (Amanda Seyfried) and Andrew Winchester (Brandon Sklenar). She moves into their sprawling, fake-rustic mansion. Millie’s quarters are a creepy attic room with a deadbolt lock she doesn’t have a key for. The job gets off to a rough start, mostly due to a general vibe of discomfort: Nina’s volatility, Andrew’s chilly emotional distance, a bitter daughter (Indiana Elle) to babysit. Of course, seductions and deceptions and violence are just around the corner.

The movie’s biggest problem is its script. It’s real blocky, an exposition dump-athon that manages to feel both squished and painfully slow in its pacing. The first half drags, but it’s doing mandatory labor, laying groundwork for the twisty, over-busy second half. Neither half really lands with much force: The setup doesn’t seduce you; the payoff doesn’t wallop you. You can feel the screenplay (credited to Rebecca Sonnenshine) clicking from plot point to plot point like it’s checking items off a list. And then it ends with a radically stupid final scene; but that’s just the eye-roll cherry on the disappointment sundae.

Performance-wise, it’s a weirdly uneven ensemble for a movie that’s basically an acting showcase by design. Sweeney’s blank-slate, underreaction screen style can be alluring or even powerful when it reads as guarded intelligence or internalized panic (see: Reality) — but here it gets stretched way past its breaking point. Millie is written as a woman at the end of her rope, but Sweeney is often playing her like she’s just wandered in after a nap. Seyfried, meanwhile, is an order of magnitude better than anyone else here. She’s operating on a live-wire frequency as Nina, setting a pace nobody else comes close to matching, which almost has the side effect of making her feel shrill because she’s the only one consistently bringing electricity to scenes that otherwise flatten out. After those two, Sklenar gives a straightforward, shallow read on Andrew. My favorite part of his performance comes in the way that Feig always makes him look massive, especially as compared to the small Seyfried and Sweeney.

The film’s tone is a bit unmodulated. I actually don’t mind that The Housemaid wants to be a little sexy, a little tense, a little brutal, swapping flavors every few scenes. That’s pulp! What’s missing, and is decidedly non-Feig, is that this is barely funny at all. A Simple Favor had the crucial feedback loop of comedy and tension each heightening the impact of the other. The Housemaid mostly plays it straight: suspenseful, sometimes nasty… but rarely anything that will make you laugh.

Even the craft feels stuck in the middle. The biggest missed opportunity is the production design, which is firmly B-minus territory: the mansion where most of the movie is set is just begging to be a decadent house of horrors, a Gothic temple of wealth and rot, and instead it’s only 50% sinister. It’s handsome, but not palatial. Sleek, but not perverse.

The setting design is not the only department the film teases something kinkier than it delivers: The Housemaid offers an extremely half-hearted whiff of a demented, Hitchcock-esque sexual hangup in Sklenar’s Andrew towards his mother (Elizabeth Perkins), but never really cashes that check. In general the film feels watered down, like Feig didn’t realize he wanted to make it ten percent loopier and more unhinged and hornier until it was too late. (It is at least a little horny, thankfully; you’d only be stretching a little to call this an “erotic thriller.”)

And despite all my griping: it’s a pulpy, post-Gone Girl domestic thriller full of deceptions and sleazy twists and beautiful people behaving badly. Even baseline execution of that is an easy sit. I was hooked the whole way through, even wondering, scene after scene, when a moment was really going to hit. It’s watchable enough, and Seyfried electric enough, that I wouldn’t suffer too much heartburn handing out a soft passing grade; but I’ve bellyached enough that I think it shows where my heart is at.

What tilts me slightly negative is that the movie feels like it’s constantly straining instead of soaring, the machinery of its plot too inelegant and bumpy to be fun. I honestly can’t believe I’m about to give this movie a lower grade than the more tossed off Another Simple Favor, but I guess The Housemaid is heavier, duller, and less satisfying despite being, on paper, the juicier story.

And yet, for all my affection, A Simple Favor never occurred to me for a moment as a film that needed a sequel. Part of its appeal was how well it spun its tonal plates — comedy, mystery, erotic-tinged thriller, airport novel pulp — without letting any of them crash. It’s a balancing act that felt, if not impossible to replicate, then at least pointless to try. So when updates started rolling in about Another Simple Favor, I greeted them with disinterest and a smidge of annoyance.

But credit where it’s due: Another Simple Favor carves out a distinctive tonal space of its own. It’s not nearly as tight or carefully engineered as the original — more gas station wine cooler than $16 appletini — but it goes down easy. It tones down the suspense and barbed satire of the original, instead leaning into the comedy and the trashy plot twists and thrills. Frothy but, against the odds, satisfying.

Unlike the original, Feig doesn’t waste time grounding us in a reality to gradually unspool. We’re dropped straight into pulp, this time with a decadent European twist, as the action relocates to sun-soaked Capri. The plot is soapy and completely implausible.

Five years after faking her own death (and framing her own twin for murder), Emily Nelson (Blake Lively) is out of prison and back in Stephanie Smothers’ (Anna Kendrick) life. Stephanie, now a true crime vlogger and author with a fanbase full of Murderinos, has just published a memoir about the tangled friendship and betrayal of the first film. At a book signing, Emily reappears and ropes Stephanie into a destination wedding in Capri. The groom is a wealthy, handsome, intimidating man named Dante (Michele Morrone), whom Emily describes as “an old friend,” and who will most assuredly not play upon stereotypes about Italian organized crime, nope, no way. Emily convinces Stephanie to take the maid-of-honor gig as both an olive branch and a threat: Play her manipulative games or get brought down by Emily’s new wealth and power. Stephanie, not-so-secretly a glutton for chaos, agrees.

Once in Capri, the movie kicks into both sensory and narrative overdrive. We meet (and re-meet) a swirl of glamorous suspects of crimes-to-be-committed leading up to the wedding: Emily’s ex-husband Sean (Henry Golding), now bitter and boozy; her son Nicky (Ian Ho), a precocious pre-teen with annoying hair; Dante’s icy mother Portia (Elena Sofia Ricci); and a suspicious woman masquerading as a tourist but clearly tailing Stephanie (Taylor Ortega). Emily’s mom (Elizabeth Perkins replacing Elizabeth Smart) and aunt (Allison Janney) show up. A murder ensues, then another and another, all (in)conveniently centered around Stephanie to make her a prime suspect. Dramatic livestreams, blackmail, poison injections, explosions, and mistaken identities all pile up as the narrative straddles soap opera and thriller spoof.

Part of what made A Simple Favor so fun was the electrifying push-pull between Kendrick’s fraying sweetness and Lively’s icy, sexy charisma. The two performances in the original were so distinct and dialed-in that I still have trouble picking a favorite. This time, though, it’s not even close: Lively owns Another Simple Favor. She’s turned it up to 11: cool, mean, slippery, sexy, and oozing danger. Her deadpan delivery is phenomenal, and, by the end of the story, she gets to take her performance into even weirder, more unhinged territory than before. I have her penciled in for a 2025 B.A.D.S. nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Kendrick, meanwhile, settles into a more overtly comic groove this time around. Her Stephanie is still the plucky, type-A try-hard from first film, but given the outcome of the first film, there’s no longer a sense of Stephanie treading the line between proper and ruthless; the character is a little more broad and squarely “quipping heroine.” The performance works — Kendrick is a naturally funny and dynamic actor — but it doesn’t quite reach the same depths as her previous turn. It’s fine, but this is Lively’s world now.

Much of the film’s fun comes from its indulgent production, and nowhere is that more evident than in the costuming. Lively gets about six outfits that each belong on the film’s poster or the cover a fashion magazine. It’s an absolute treat, a mix of Italian Riviera elegance and haute couture supervillainy that tells you everything you need to know about Emily before she even opens her mouth. At one point she wears a very big hat. I could warn you that this hat is bigger than you expect it to be from me simply calling it a “very big hat,” and that warning may present to you a new mental image of how big this hat is, but I assure you that the hat is even bigger than that. Slam dunk hat of the year.

Feig clearly knows that a major draw here is the vibe of the setting. He shoots Capri like a travel brochure: cliffside villas, blue-tiled fountains, golden-hour yachts. He probably uses one or two too many drone shots zipping over sun-drenched rooftops, but I honestly can’t blame him. I would not be surprised if Feig binged the second season of The White Lotus in preparation — it has the same intoxicating Italian luxury. The backdrop lends the film a plush, escapist sheen that’s a new wrinkle compared to the domestic original.

Despite how featherweight the film sometimes feels, it’s modestly effective in its labyrinthine plotting. The story takes a little too long to really get going, but once it does, it’s pretty committed, juggling all the twisty silliness quite well. It repeats some beats from the original to diminishing effect, but still holds together. There’s a lot of pleasure in the delivery of the narrative, even when the gears are greased with arch nonsense. Only a couple threads, like the investigation of an undercover FBI agent, dangle or dead-end, and I’m willing to dismiss those as red herrings.

One conclusion that I draw from Another Simple Favor and the original is that Feig’s peak operating space these days is in soapy comic thrillers. Many of his films are almost defiantly uncool and out-of-style, from Jackpot’s Jackie Chan martial arts comedy riff to Last Christmas’s loopy holiday romance. Excluding Spy, which is well-regarded but I haven’t seen, the two Simple Favors are easily the most effective of his films since Bridesmaids, and possibly ever. I get the sense he’s giving himself permission to have fun and go crowd-pleasing as he dabbles in Hitchcock homage and drapes his supermodel in outrageous gowns. I hope Feig follows that inspiration and that his trashy thriller phase continues. (And if it does, I hope his movies get theatrical releases; Another Simple Favor is one of 2025’s inexplicable streaming-only films, lending it an unneeded air of cheapness.)

Another Simple Favor isn’t anywhere as good as the first, and it’s so lightweight and hits a couple too many of the beats of the original to really crackle. But it’s also clear it’s never trying to outdo the original, instead just playing the hits in a lovely new setting and a new supporting cast. I’m right on the fence of soft thumbs up and an affectionate shrug. Thanks to the spectacularly game Blake Lively and glossy production, I’ll give it an unenthusiastic passing grade.

The movie follows Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) as she deals with the disappearance of her friend Emily (Blake Lively) shortly after Emily asked Stephanie for “a simple favor” of picking up her son after school one day. Stephanie is a single mom who runs a mommy vlog that grows increasingly popular as the case unfolds, giving us a sort of framing device for the story. I really don’t want to spoil the rest of it, because the revelations and twists unfold at such a steady, pleasing drip.

Kendrick and Lively absolutely carry the film, and I changed my mind about which one was better about ten times. It is easily the best performance I’ve seen for either of them (and the supporting cast, including Henry Golding and Bashir Salahuddin are great, too). Kendrick has more to do in the protagonist role, and pulls the entire range off remarkably well: She perfectly captures the sunny energy of an overly cheerful and meticulous mom who shapes her reality through sheer optimstic force of will. But Stephanie has moments of darker edge, too, and these two sides of her personality feed into each other in a way Kendrick captures perfectly. Her joke delivery is occasionally a bit shticky — and, in general, the jokey moments of the film are its weakest — but it’s really a memorable and terrific performance.

Yet I think I was more blown away by Lively. I’ve often found her electric on screen, her raspy voice and ridiculous beauty so magnetic, but this takes it to a whole new level. She’s all danger and sex, framed as a towering figure of supermodel grace. Her sultry line-readings are understated, but packed with so much verve and audible smirk. (In particular, she has a repeated epithet she calls Stephanie that slays every single time.)

Feig, too, is doing great work. The film is shot in light, orderly tones, mostly in upscale interiors that feature toxic pastels. The pace of the film is firecracker — maybe a bit overstretched in the final act, but barely — and Feig does a great job of giving every character moments to shine.. He also sprinkles in a few stylized visual touches that work really well: One particular flourish that stood out was Emily tossing a wrench in the air in slow-mo.

It all comes together in a campy, exciting, immensely watchable whole. The script is pulpy and decadent fun (if a bit convoluted down the stretch). The soundtrack uses French pop to add a layer of quasi-ironic elegance. I uttered “oh shit” and burst out laughing in frequent and near-equal measure; if that’s not the sign of a film worth watching, I’m not sure what is.