Repeating: Indications are that Paul Feig‘s The Housemaid (Lionsgate, 12.25), based onFreida McFadden’s three-year-old novel, a feminist potboiler that has since grown into a multi-book franchise, is going to be a bit of a groaner…perhaps even a forehead-slapper.

All feminist airport fiction is based upon a single premise, which is that the principal male character is a toxic piece of shit who has made his own bed and deserves all the bad karma that’s sure to come his way.

It certainly seems unlikely that Feig’s film will deliver the intrigue and complexity of <strong>Im Sang-soo</strong>’s <em>The Housemaid</em> (’10), which I recall as being half-decent. Both versions have vaguely similar plots with the husband banging (or at least looking to bang) the housemaid, and the wife freaking out and the usual blowback kicking in.

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