The Housemaid Movie's Ending Is Different From The Book. Why I Actually Like It Better

When it comes to book adaptations, it’s pretty much impossible not to compare the source material to the movie/TV version. In the case of The Housemaid movie, there were a lot of times when I noted differences between the two versions (including pre-release, with the trailer), but totally understood why the movie took the liberties that it did. This is especially true when it comes to the ending to the latest of the 2025 movie releases, and I need to talk about it.

Of course, that means I need to prime this with a massive SPOILER WARNING. If you haven’t read the book by Freida McFadden or seen the movie starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, I highly recommend you bookmark this article for later because it’s just too fun to be along for the ride here first. Anyway, let’s start by getting into the book ending:

The Real Story Behind Nina Winchester

The climax of The Housemaid occurs when Millie finds herself locked in the attic by Andrew, as the live-in housemaid and the husband of her employer have a blooming romance that has left Nina kicked out by her husband. Suddenly, the perspective of the book is shifted to Nina’s. While we expect Nina (who has been framed as a psychopath the whole movie) to be completely heartbroken about Andrew’s decision to break up their relationship, she’s overjoyed to have rid herself of her husband and gleefully burns his picture while staying at a hotel.

Nina then tells the story of her and Andrew, sharing how he asked her out to lunch after she had an embarrassing moment at their office when she was called out for her breasts leaking with milk shortly after having her daughter, Cecelia. We learn that what started out as a fairytale romance became an abusive situation following their marriage, where he’d often lock her in the attic and torture her.

He made sure it was difficult for her to leave the marriage by orchestrating an incident where it looked like she tried to drown Cecelia in a bathtub while on narcotics, which landed her in a psych ward. So, she orchestrated a plan to get Andrew to leave her: hiring Millie and organizing how he would fall for the housemaid and leave her, and having Millie do the dirty work of killing him.

How The Book Ends

When the story returns to Millie’s side of things, Andrew continues his abusive pattern by asking her to balance three large books (A Guide To U.S. Prisons, The History of Torture and a phone book) on her stomach for a matter of three hours. She doesn’t do it correctly the first time by his standards, so he makes her do it a second time before he lets her out.

Millie, who we find out was in prison for murder, handles things differently than Andrew and locks him in the attic. First, she has him balance the same three books, but on his groin, before then asking him to pull out four of his teeth with a pair of pliers. Meanwhile, the gardener, Enzo (who we find out knew about what happened to Nina, and thus has been lurking on the grounds to protect Millie), convinces Nina to save Millie from her husband. Nina heads to the house and unlocks the door. She thinks Millie is in there, but instead she finds Andrew, who died of starvation and the torture inflicted by Millie.

Nina insists that Millie run away, and she tells the police that Andrew accidentally locked himself inside of the attic and died because she was out of town and Millie had the week off. While other people might question the four teeth missing, the policeman is the father of the woman who was engaged to Andrew before Nina, and (knowing Andrew is bad news) simply rules it an accident. At the funeral, Andrew’s mom seems to infer to Nina that she would inflict the same torture on her son, while Millie takes another housemaid job as referred by Nina, where the housewife suggests during the interview her husband also abuses her.

What Happens At The End Of The Housemaid Movie, And Why I Like It Better

If you watched the movie, which has been receiving critical praise and had us clutching our pearls as the director teased, you surely picked up on the many ways it's the same as the book, but also has glaring changes to the ending. While Nina’s backstory is all the same, give or take a detail or two, what happens at the Winchester house at the end is quite different.

Rather than Andrew asking Millie to balance the books on her stomach, he asks her to cut herself 20 times (deeply) with a piece of his mom’s china that she accidentally broke. She does it, and when Andrew finally opens the door for her, she slits his neck with a butter knife she found locked away in the attic. She taunts Andrew by breaking more of the china set before asking him to pull one of his front teeth because she thinks he’s getting off a little too easy in the world with his perfect smile.

In the movie, it’s Cecelia who actually suggests that Nina go after Millie, but this time rather than her finding Andrew already dead, when she opens the door (thinking it’s Millie), Andrew is unleashed. This leads to a more active confrontation between Andrew and Nina that allows the couple to share a final scene. While I found the book’s ending to be shocking, I definitely think it’s more rewarding as an audience member to see the husband and wife have a final moment together where Nina gets to tell him what she really thinks of him.

Millie still kills him, this time by throwing him off the balcony of the decadent Winchester house. The story they use in the movie is that he was trying to change a lightbulb, with Nina adding in her statement it wasn’t out of character for him because he often wanted things to be perfect. Rather than the policeman, it’s a policewoman, who is the sister of the woman who was engaged to Andrew previously. I think the story’s original ending is a lot more anticlimactic than this one, and isn’t as gratifying as the movie’s ending. That being said, as it goes with most book-to-movies, I do think the book overall is better.