By Evie Beale
Sports Editor
Every book-to-movie adaptation has its own life, its own story, and its key differences. The movie may change the plot of a book dramatically or slightly, but when you go to see a movie based on a book you’ve read, it may shock you with some new surprises.
In November, a friend recommended The Housemaid by Freida McFadden to me, and it turned out to be an amazing read. Throughout the book, you could never tell what would happen next, so when I saw that the movie was coming out I knew I had to see it for myself. After I went to see the movie with a few friends, I noticed some key differences between the book and its film adaptation.
In the book, Millie, the main character, is on parole and in desperate need of a job. She ends up getting the job as a housemaid for the Winchester family. Once she is there, she notices something is off; she thinks Nina (Mrs. Winchester) is crazy, but after Millie’s affair with Andrew (Mr. Winchester), the secret unveils itself to her: Andrew is actually the crazy one. He keeps Millie and Nina locked in the attic and forces them to do different punishments when they do something wrong. After escaping and breaking free of Andrew’s imprisonment, Millie uses her murderous strength to keep him locked in the attic, where he dies of dehydration and starvation.
One of the major differences I noticed in the movie is the punishment Millie faces. In the book, Millie leaves out books and, in turn, Andrew forces her to balance them on her stomach before being let out of the attic. However, in the movie, Millie breaks Andrew’s mother’s nice china plates, and Andrew punishes her by making her take the broken plate and carve 21 deep cuts into her stomach. This change increases the gruesomeness of the story.
Following this gruesome switch-up from the book to the movie, Nina leaves a knife in the attic instead of pepper spray, which results in Millie stabbing Andrew to get out and trapping him in the attic, rather than her spraying him with pepper spray to get out. In the movie, the violence didn’t stop there. Instead of Andrew dying of starvation and dehydration, and Nina coming home to his dead body, Nina accidentally frees him from the attic when she comes home, resulting in additional violence that finishes in Millie pushing Andrew into the empty gap of the spiral staircase, killing Andrew instantly.
Overall, the movie took an already violent book and gave it an even more dreadful twist. From Nina giving Millie pepper spray to a knife, and from Andrew dying of starvation to Andrew dying as a result of being thrown down the stairs, the movie kept you on your seat with bloody turns.
Aside from the dramatic switch-up in the ending and punishments, there were minor changes that were still impactful. In the book, Cecilia (Nina’s daughter) is an important character, but her deep understanding of what Andrew does to Nina is never expressed or fully developed. In the movie, the filmmakers communicate Cecilia’s knowledge through a dollhouse, where it is seen that Nina’s figurine is placed in the attic. This expresses her understanding that Andrew has been locking Nina in the attic for a long time as a punishment. The most interesting part of this change is when she takes Millie’s troll figurine from her room and places it in the attic. This proves that she knows Millie is in danger, just like her mom. Later in the movie, it is Cecilia who tells Nina to go back to save Millie, prompting the dramatic ending.
Where the movie adds some character development in Cecilia, it lessens the impact of some characters like Enzo, the neighborhood groundskeeper. The book takes its time developing Enzo as a character and gives him a stronger role in the story as a whole. It is known that movie adaptations have to be juicy, have to have an intriguing plot, and have to keep viewers entertained the whole time, so it makes sense that this film adaptation leans into the violence of the story and diminishes the impact of some of the characters.
In my opinion I loved both the book and the movie. While the movie was different from the book in many ways it still maintained the general plot and concepts that make the story so enjoyable. Even though there were some big changes in the movie I still recommend going to see the movie or reading the book.