Tension, temptation, and the thrill of wrong choices—how ‘The Housemaid’ turns desire into dangerous obsession

“Actions have consequences.” 

It’s something we tell ourselves or hear in passing whenever there’s poor judgment involved. Those consequences usually fade away quickly, but after watching The Housemaid, that very statement both haunts and amuses me. 

I don’t know what it is about thrillers—whether it’s on screen or on a page—but the promise of a spine-tingling suspense always seems to draw in audiences. Now they yearn for even more, and that somehow prompted thrillers with a combination of erotic desire and danger. They’re unsettling and compelling, but they’re also undeniably irresistible, even if thrillers aren’t your thing. 

The Housemaid paints a clean picture from the very beginning. A big fancy house in the suburbs, a rich white family, a close to picture-perfect life, with microscopic cracks that are easy to ignore when the people involved are rich and attractive. Who doesn’t love the rags-to-riches kind of romance? Plus, throw in a mentally unstable wife, and suddenly everyone’s rooting for the cheater and homewrecker.

Whatever your moral opinion on the subject, audiences have begun to crave the kind of stories that mingle desire with danger. Remember how people justified Joe’s actions in the Netflix show You? Fans have managed to do the same with The Housemaid’s Andrew Winchester (Brandon Sklenar), too. Drawn in by his simmering, unsettling presence, they keep joking on social media about how his quiet menace makes them rethink everything they normally root for. Some fans have even gone so far as to make jokes about the plot, with one user on Reddit commenting on how they would not let their hair roots show (if you know you know) if it meant catching his eye, a playful way of acknowledging how the film’s heat and danger have morphed into a kind of fan flirtation online. We can’t help but dignify the stories that tempt us to empathise with the “wrong” choice. And The Housemaid does exactly that. 

Morally ambiguous characters 

The Housemaid manipulates empathy in such a devious way. On the surface, you have the allegedly unstable wife, Nina (Amanda Seyfried) and the calm, almost saint-like husband, Andrew. He’s dreamy, soft-spoken, and patient, and most importantly, he continues to support his wife despite her challenging moments. It’s hard not to feel sorry for him. And it’s even harder not to root for the affair. 

So the audience is treated to moments of tension, where he’s battling between his attraction towards the seemingly innocent, gorgeous housemaid, Millie (Sydney Sweeney), and his duties as a husband and father. You feel bad for the housemaid, too, because all she’s doing is trying to make a life for herself. But she keeps getting caught in a double bind with Nina. Juggling the dynamics of the household and Nina’s instability traps her in a complicated web, and so the wealthy husband becomes a figure of temptation for her. And because we’re programmed to think that two wrongs usually make a right, the film nudges us towards justifying morally dubious choices by dangling moments of danger laced with desire and tension. 

Desire, danger, and the thrill we can’t quit

The tension is deliciously uncomfortable. It’s never loud or explosive but slow, watchful, and unsettling. Andrew’s attraction towards Millie unfolds in stolen glances and moments that feel almost accidental—a conversation held a second too long, a kindness that crosses into intimacy. It’s easy for things to get complicated. Desire is complicated. It rarely announces itself. Instead, it creeps in when you least expect it, through shared spaces and emotional dependence. The home becomes a pressure point here. Silence, loaded. And romance doesn’t soften the threat, only sharpens it. There’s no dramatic seduction in the film, no grand declaration of lust, just a quiet erosion of boundaries, where something that initially feels harmless slowly begins to feel inevitable.

But the clever bit is how The Housemaid frames these moments as emotional relief rather than betrayal. Andrew, although calm and composed, appears exhausted by Nina’s schenanigans. Millie becomes someone he can talk to, who offers warmth without volatility, who exists outside the chaos of his marriage. For him, she represents calm, while he promises stability, safety, and access to a life she’s never been allowed to imagine for herself. Their desire is mutual, yes, but it’s also deeply uneven, shaped by class, power, and proximity. And yet, the film makes it feel natural enough that you almost forget to question it.

The rise of the rom-com thriller

This is where The Housemaid aligns itself with a growing wave of romantic thrillers that thrive on discomfort rather than spectacle. They don’t care about shocking audiences with gore. Instead, they seduce first, pairing forbidden romance with psychological tension that feels intimate, even tender. You’re drawn in by chemistry and longing, only to realise that these very emotions are what make the situation unstable.

The movie taps into our fascination with watching people make the wrong choices slowly and knowingly. It doesn’t rush its characters toward disaster, only lets them justify each step along the way. It’s not asking us to condone infidelity or manipulation, but to understand how easily they take root. And that understanding, although quiet, empathetic, and unsettling, becomes far more dangerous than outright judgment.

In the end, the film isn’t just about an affair or a fractured marriage. It’s about how easily desire slips into spaces it doesn’t belong, how danger sharpens its appeal, and how quickly softness can disguise something corrosive. The real discomfort lies in recognising that, under the right circumstances, we might have found ourselves rooting for the same bad decisions too.

Lead image: IMDb

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