The Housemaid

On parole, Millie Calloway is hired by Nina Winchester as a live-in maid. She joins Nina's wealthy husband Andrew and daughter Cece at their mansion in Great Neck, Long Island, and is given an attic bedroom with a sealed window and a door that can only be locked from the outside. Nina is hiring because she claims she is pregnant and needs help around the house. Millie is desperate to keep her job as a condition of her parole. One morning, Nina erupts at Millie, accusing her of throwing away her meeting notes. Andrew deescalates the situation and reassures Nina that she can still rework her notes. One night, Nina finds Andrew watching Family Feud with Millie; though innocuous, Nina threatens to fire Millie and tells her to stay away from Andrew. Millie learns that Nina lost her parents in a suspicious house fire, can't have more children due to premature ovarian insufficiency, takes antipsychotic medications, was institutionalized for trying to drown Cece, and attempting suicide by overdose.

At Nina's instruction, Millie books Broadway musical tickets and a hotel for the Winchesters; however, Nina then denies having given her these instructions, as the schedule overlaps with Cece's ballet camp. While Nina takes Cece to ballet camp, Andrew and Millie secretly attend the show, enjoy dinner together, and check into the hotel. Receiving a flood of angry texts from Nina, Millie is comforted by Andrew. The two have sex and return home. Nina tells Millie she knows she spent ten years in prison for killing a rapist classmate in high school.

Nina finds out about their affair and threatens Millie, but Andrew defends her and demands that Nina leave. Andrew and Millie continue their romance. Millie decides to serve Andrew breakfast on an heirloom china plate from his controlling mother, but the presence of the groundskeeper Enzo outside the door frightens her and causes her to drop the plate, breaking it. Andrew fires Enzo and tells Millie to pick up the pieces. That night, Andrew brings Millie to the attic room, drugs her, and locks her inside. When she wakes up, she demands he let her out, but he refuses.

In a letter that Nina plans to give to her daughter when she's grown, Nina explains that she had nothing to do with her parents' death. A married law professor got her pregnant, and she fell for Andrew while raising Cece as a single mother. Early in their marriage, Andrew requested that Nina dye her brunette locks blonde. When she missed an appointment to touch up her roots, he locked her in the attic room until she pulled out one hundred hairs from her scalp, including the follicles; he forced her to do it again after claiming that one strand was missing a follicle. He then drugged her, framed her for attempting to kill Cece by drowning and drugging herself, and continued to torment her with confinement in the psychiatric hospital and the attic. Enzo tried to help her and Cece escape Andrew's abuse to no avail. Finally, Nina hired Millie, accurately predicting that Andrew would leave her for Millie.

As punishment for breaking the china, Andrew gives Millie a shard and demands that she cut her stomach once for each of the plate's pieces, a total of 21 cuts. After doing so, Millie falls asleep on the bed. When Andrew enters the attic to check on Millie, she stabs him with a knife hidden for her by Nina and locks him in the attic room. Millie orders Andrew to pull out one of his front teeth with pliers. Millie forces him to comply by breaking many pieces of his mother's china and threatening to burn the attic. When Nina picks up Cece from camp, Cece suggests that Nina save Millie. Nina sneaks into the house and unlocks the attic door, believing that Millie is still inside. Andrew attacks Millie and Nina, but Millie escapes. Andrew tries to kill Nina, but Millie returns and pushes him into the house's stairwell, killing him. Nina drops a lightbulb to make it appear that Andrew fell while trying to install it.

A policewoman, Jessica Connors, notices that the evidence casts doubt on Nina's explanation for Andrew's death. Jessica mentions that her sister was once engaged to Andrew, which was a traumatic experience for her. Jessica decides to describe his death as a freak accident. After Andrew's funeral, Nina gives Millie a $100,000 check, then leaves with Cece to start a new life. Nina recommends Millie's services to her friend Lisa, who implies that her husband is abusive. Millie asks when she can start.