‘The Housemaid’ Movie Adaptation: Five Biggest Changes Made From Freida McFadden’s Novel

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains major spoilers for plot points in “The Housemaid,” now in theaters.

For fans of Freida McFadden’s thriller novel “The Housemaid,” watching the Lionsgate adaptation movie was a bit of a different experience — we went in knowing the twist. While most of the largest moments in the book were represented in the movie, not everything weas the same. In fact, one storyline was much smaller in the film than in the book.

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“The Housemaid” follows a young woman, Millie (Sydney Sweeney), who has a dark past and is desperate for work; she excitedly accepts the job as a live-in housemaid for a wealthy family, Nina and Andrew Winchester (Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar). Soon, she finds out their seemingly perfect life is far from it.

The book is split into two perspectives — first, Millie’s, then Nina’s. From Millie’s POV, Nina is the villain, a mentally unstable, harsh wife and mother while Andrew does everything to keep her happy. From the community, Millie hears that Nina tried to take her own life after leaving her daughter to die in the bathtub. Luckily, doting husband Andrew called the police just in time and Nina was hospitalized. He’s the man who chose to stay with her and take care of her.

The second half of the book and movie, Nina’s POV reveals what actually happened: Shortly after marrying Andrew, he began abusing her and locking her in the attic without food, torturing her. He once drugged her and she woke up in the bathroom only to discover her daughter in the bathtub — and the police taking her away. From then on, he continued to punish her and threatened to get her taken away again if she didn’t stay. She decided to hire Millie so that she could escape — she knew he’d cheat — but also because of Millie’s past. Millie spent 10 years in prison for murdering a man who assaulted a friend — so she could take him down.

Below, Variety breaks down some of the biggest changes from the book and the movie — including that ending.

Andrew’s torture of Millie

In both the movie and the book, Millie starts to put together what has happened after Andrew locks her in the attic, beginning to torment her. But in the book, he makes Millie painfully balance three large books on her stomach for hours. He has installed a camera to watch and when she doesn’t do it correctly the first time, he makes her do it again.

In the movie, the scene is more violent. Since she’s been locked in the attic for accidentally breaking antique dishes, he orders her to, using a piece of the plate, slice 21 deep cuts into her stomach.

Millie’s torture of Andrew

In the book, Millie then taunts Andrew and gives him a taste of his own medicide, asking him to balance the same three books on his groin, then instructs him to pull out his teeth with pliers.

In the movie, after being let out, Millie uses the knife Nina has hidden inside to slit Andrew’s throat and lock him inside the room. As he bleeds out, she breaks more of his mother’s china in front of the door and instructs him to pull out his front tooth since he’s convinced too many people he’s a good person with this perfect smile.

Andrew’s death

In the book, the gardener, Enzo (who knew what happened to Nina, and stayed on the grounds to try and help), convinced Nina to go back to the house to save Millie. When she does, she finds Andrew in the attic, dead of starvation.

The movie gets a bit darker; Nina’s daughter is the one to convince her to go back and help Millie, but when she returns to the attic, she opens the door assuming Millie is locked inside. Instead, Andrew is alive and charges out, trying to attack both Nina and Millie; eventually, he begs Nina to give him another chance, giving her the opportunity to tell him how awful he is. Ultimately, Millie shoves him over their spiral staircase where he falls to his violent death.

The end

A policeman questions Nina in the book, revealing that his daughter was once involved with Andrew. In the movie, it’s a policewoman who does the interrogating before sharing that her sister was in a relationship with him. Since they both knew the harm he caused, they believe that his death was an accident.

At the end of the book Millie teams up with Enzo to form a group to help women in abusive relationships. That doesn’t exist in the movie but the flash forward to one year later is the same: she’s interviewing for a new position at the home of woman who’s being abused and got her name from Nina. Has she been hired to kill him? Possibly.

Enzo’s patricipation

Overall, it’s important to note that in the book, the family groundskeeper Enzo is a much larger part of the story, trying to help Nina escape multiple times and eventually, helping her come up with the plan to hire a new woman to draw Andrew’s attention away. Millie once makes a move on him, knowing that it’d be smarter than going after Andrew, a married man. He turns her down.

After she did escape, Nina and Enzo spends a night together. Eventually, he tells her it’s not right to leave Millie in danger with Andrew. Later, he calls to alert her the attic light on is on and Millie hasn’t been seen in days, encouraging Nina to come check on her. She agrees to do so as long as he’ll protect her daughter; he does just that.

In the movie, the character, portrayed by Michele Morrone, was barely part of the story. It’s made clear, eventually, that he did help Nina try to escape but he’s more of a background character than a key part of the film.

If more movies come out, and they stay close to the story told in the books, Enzo will be back — and not in a small way.