Margaret Atwood, a Canadian novelist (and poet) wrote the dark fantasy novel on which this film is based. It is set in The Republic of Gilead, formerly the United States, or at least the parts of it that are not radioactive. The radioactive parts are called the colonies, where bad girls are sent to die of radiation poisoning. The time is the near future, after the inevitable nuclear war, and the breakdown of government as we know it.
The society depicted in The Handmaid's Tale is a nightmare: everyone is watched by the Eyes, unknowable, unseen government spies. Women are forbidden to have jobs. They are irrevocably assigned to classes. At the top are the chaste, but morally superior, Wives, almost all of whom have been rendered infertile by the inevitable unclear war. At the bottom are the housekeepers, or Marthas, who are non-entities. In the middle are the Handmaids of the title, who are fertile, but tightly controlled. The term Handmaid is a Biblical term that is used in the Old Testament stories of Abraham, Sarah, Jacob and Rachel. In the Bible, the wives gave their handmaids to their husbands in order to produce heirs.
Handmaids, in the film and the book, are forced to have sex with the Commanders, the husbands of the Wives. During this sex, the Wives are intimately present to take in any "love" their Commanders have to give.
The Handmaids are trained to remain unattached to the Commanders. They are prohibited from using makeup or doing anything to make themselves attractive. Handmaids are forced to turn their offspring over to the morally "fit" Wives.
Robert Duvall, a Commander in whose home Offred is placed, gives a family Bible reading performance that will curdle the blood of true people of faith. It is a breathtaking, heart-stopping performance.
The government is totalitarian and monotheistic. The one god is very strict, and has His Eyes everywhere.
Offred, who was once known as Kate, is a Handmaid who, despite her training (read brainwashing), recalls her past, her loving husband, and her adored daughter. She tells with sparkling, and terrifying clarity, how the society came to be the way it is.
This governmental aspect of the story is instructive, however, they are almost totally absent in the film.
Offred's/Kate's personal story is heartrending. It reminds one of the miseries of, say, the women of Darfur. When the government breaks down, she and her husband and daughter attempt to flee to Canada. Unfortunately, they are caught. Her daughter is "confiscated." Her husband is taken away. She never sees her husband again.
Offred's training is not as extensively portrayed in the film as it is in the book, but her feeling of terror and helplessness are palpable, in an exquisite performance by Natasha Richardson. Warning, blood is shown.
As we ride down the slippery slope toward the overturning of Roe v. Wade, this film is a must see for those who still care about women's rights.
