The Housewife, the feature directorial debut of Canadian filmmaker Ben Shirinian, had its world premiere as the opening-night selection of the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival. Written by Alyssa Hill and led by Naomi Watts, with Tye Sheridan, Michael Imperioli, Luke Evans, Lena Olin and Debi Mazar rounding out the cast, the film is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
The critical response out of Toronto has been consistent on one point above all: whatever the film’s flaws, Watts’ performance is not one of them.
The story, based on real events, follows New York Times reporter Joseph Lelyveld, played by Sheridan, who is tipped off by famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal about a suspected former concentration camp guard living quietly in Queens under an assumed identity.
Tracking the suspect down in 1964, Lelyveld first encounters not the man himself, but his wife, Hermine Ryan, played by Watts, an Austrian-born homemaker who appears to be the picture of suburban domesticity, baking for her church group, tending her garden club and cooking dinner for her construction-worker husband Russell, played by Evans. Working alongside immigration officer Anthony DeVito, played by Imperioli, Lelyveld eventually uncovers that it is Hermine, not her husband, who was in fact the camp guard responsible for sending hundreds of Jewish prisoners to their deaths, a role rarely explored on screen given how few films have depicted female Nazi guards.
Across every review, Naomi Watts’ performance emerged as the film’s defining strength. The Hollywood Reporter’s review put it simply: “The Bottom Line: Naomi Watts makes it worth your time.” Variety’s review credited her with “detail and integrity,” writing that her performance “often seems a step ahead of the film around her,” and praising how she “titrates Hermine’s darkness with precision, unmasking her in sequential bits.”
IndieWire echoed that sentiment, writing that “in a carefully constructed performance, she titrates Hermine’s darkness with precision, unmasking her in sequential bits that make one’s throat tighten,” and adding that “with each swipe of dust, bedsheet smoothed, and portion of meatloaf served, Watts deftly embodies the palpable psychological and physical tension at work within her.” Lainey Gossip called her “consistently the best thing about The Housewife,” describing a “layered performance that doubles down on manipulation and presentation” as Hermine builds a fortress of normalcy around herself.
Where the reviews diverge is on how well the film built around that performance actually works. The Hollywood Reporter found the film’s first act, centered on the slow-burn dynamic between Hermine and Lelyveld, “beguiling,” but felt the drama “settles into less intriguing territory” once the story shifts toward more conventional extradition-hearing proceedings.
Variety was more blunt about the same structural issue, writing that “the procedural thriller around her, probing at that deception, feels undercooked, with neither Tye Sheridan’s investigating journalist nor Michael Imperioli’s immigration officer much of a foil for Naomi Watts’ more layered protagonist.” The review added that the film’s back half rushes toward its conclusion “just as the film gets risky,” pulling away from “its most riveting, unreliable perspective” right when it should be leaning further into it.
IndieWire’s review, headlined “Naomi Watts Stuns, but True Story Flounders,” drew attention to the film’s unusual setting within the broader Holocaust film canon, noting there are “many films about the Holocaust, but far fewer about this particular aftermath, when survivors and perpetrators could be living ordinary lives in close proximity to one another, sometimes in the same American city.” Even so, the review found the surrounding drama unable to match the intensity of its central performance.
The Playlist’s review was the most critical of the film’s tonal cohesion, arguing that as the story progresses, “The Housewife feels more and more like two completely different films,” with the disassociation between its slow-burn character study and its courtroom-drama back half becoming “increasingly jarring.”
The review also raised a sharper, more contemporary criticism, arguing the film “wants the moral clarity of a Holocaust drama, in which the bad guys are cut and dry” but that Shirinian “shies away” from drawing any parallels to present-day immigration and deportation politics, ultimately letting the film “settle for mediocrity” outside of Watts’ work.
Lena Olin’s supporting turn as a Holocaust survivor delivering damning courtroom testimony was singled out favorably across nearly every review, with Variety noting she “gets two scenes to quietly burn everything down,” and The Playlist calling her testimony “quite good.”
On the film’s craft, reviews were mixed but not dismissive. The Hollywood Reporter compared the film’s themes of complicity and delayed justice to last year’s TIFF entry Nuremberg, while noting Shirinian directs “with handsome gravity” for a first-time filmmaker. Variety noted the film’s brisk 102-minute runtime, suggesting that after “the coy slow burn of its first hour, the rest could use as much breathing room” rather than rushing toward its conclusion.
Taken together, the reviews describe a film whose central performance is being treated as a genuine awards-conversation contender, even as critics broadly agree the surrounding investigation and courtroom drama never rises to meet her. Whether viewed as an absorbing character study undercut by a conventional back half or a missed opportunity to say something sharper about accountability, The Housewife has emerged from Toronto as a film defined almost entirely by what Naomi Watts brings to it.
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Film Details: The Housewife
Director: Ben Shirinian
Writer: Alyssa Hill
Cast: Naomi Watts, Tye Sheridan, Michael Imperioli, Luke Evans, Lena Olin, Debi Mazar
Genre: Historical Drama / Thriller
Runtime: 1 hour 42 minutes
Production Companies: RB Productions, LB Entertainment, Escape Route Films
Sales Agent: CAA
Festival: Toronto International Film Festival 2026 (Opening Night / Special Presentations)
Distribution: Seeking U.S. distribution
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