Sydney Sweeney, bad temper and little cinema in the adaptation of the viral 'bestseller' of the moment

In 1960, South Korean society was shaken by the premiere of The housemaid, a masterful combination of family drama and thriller A psychological drama in which a maid disrupted the bourgeois and patriarchal order of a wealthy family. It is pure cinephile fantasy to imagine that Kim Ki-young's majestic film—considered the best in the history of South Korean cinema—is at the origin of the best-seller Freida McFadden's viral hit, which Paul Feig (director of some episodes of) is now bringing to the big screen Mad Men and of My best friend's weddingThere is a gulf between the sharp staging and twisted naturalism of the South Korean classic and the aesthetic ineffectiveness of The assistantBy blindly trusting the twists and turns of McFadden's novel, those responsible for this routine adaptation—from the director to the cast, including screenwriter Rebecca Sonnenshine—fail to create a visually or narratively stimulating spectacle.

However, if we set aside any formal or aesthetic criteria and seek refuge in socio-ideological reflection, it is possible to find points of interest in The assistantOne must acknowledge the skill of the novel and the film in twisting the codes of thriller of female intrusion, which made a fortune in the 90s thanks to Single white woman seeks either The cradling handTaking the conflict between a bourgeois woman and her maid to the point of absurdity, the film finds a curious opening to subvert the inherent sexism of the premise. In fact, with a more inspired director and actresses—Sidney Sweeney once again demonstrates her acting limitations, and Amanda Seyfried gets lost in a well of histrionics— The assistant It could have shone as a feminist reinterpretation of the wacky ones thrillers Brian De Palma's Hitchcockian works.