The Handmaid's Tale (1990)

Director:

Volker Schlöndorff

Writers (WGA):

Margaret Atwood (novel)
Harold Pinter (screenplay)

Release Date:

9 March 1990 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

A haunting tale of sexuality in a country gone wrong.

Plot:

In a dystopicly polluted rightwing religious tyranny, a young woman is put in sexual slavery on account of her now rare fertility.

Plot Keywords:

Lesbian | Dystopian | Religious Intolerance | Futuristic | Sexism

Awards:

2 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Natasha Richardson	...	Kate / Offred
Faye Dunaway	...	Serena Joy
Aidan Quinn	...	Nick
Elizabeth McGovern	...	Moira
Victoria Tennant	...	Aunt Lydia
Robert Duvall	...	Commander
Blanche Baker	...	Ofglen
Traci Lind	...	Janine / Ofwarren
Zoey Wilson	...	Aunt Helena
Kathryn Doby	...	Aunt Elizabeth
Reiner Schöne	...	Luke (as Rainer Schoene)
Lucia Hartpeng	...	Cora (as Lucie Hartpeng)
Karma Ibsen Riley	...	Aunt Sara
Lucile McIntyre	...	Rita
Gary Bullock	...	Officer on Bus

Runtime:

109 min | USA:108 min

Country:

USA | Germany

Language:

English | German

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Canada:R (Manitoba/Nova Scotia/Ontario) | Singapore:M18 | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Iceland:16 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | France:-12 | UK:18 | USA:R | West Germany:16 (bw)

Filming Locations:

Blue Ridge Mountains, North Carolina, USA

Company:

Bioskop Film

Trivia:

The lead role of Kate was offered to Jodie Foster and Sigourney Weaver.

Goofs:

Continuity: The photo of Natasha's daughter that she is holding.

Quotes:

Kate: [very quietly mouthing] What's your name?
Moira: Moira. What's yours?
Kate: Kate.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Zomergasten: (#7.4)" (1994)

Soundtrack:

Crazy

as good as commercial film gets

I'm surprised by some of the negative comments on this film. In my opinion, it represents the best kind of literary adaptation that the cinema offers: One in which the screenwriter and director clearly remained faithful to the spirit of the book without attempting to reproduce it. How can you go wrong with a Margaret Atwood book, a Harold Pinter screenplay and Volker Schlöndorff's direction? Some have suggested that the film suffered from "wooden" acting. Personally, I thought it was a fantastic cast: Robert Duvall and Victoria Tennant at their evil best; Faye Dunnaway as the "defeated" wife; Elizabeth McGovern as saucy as ever; Aidan Quinn and Natascha Richardson in the necessarily bland roles that drive the narrative. What holes here?

Commercial film doesn't get any better. "The Handmaid's Tale" is a dark portrait of a world unlike ours and yet so much like ours... in which a right-wing, bureaucratic patriarchy dominates the land. Women have three main functions (for which their clothing is color coded): Red for the handmaids, who are walking wombs; white for the innnocent children; blue for the sterile trophy wives. Brown is worn by the "aunts", a futuristic equivalent of the Sonderkomando (i.e., Jews who worked on behalf of the Nazi's in the death camps), evil schoolmistress types who both train/brainwash young women for assignment and occasionally destroy them. A fifth function, for which the garb is particularly interesting, is "working" in Gilead's underground social club (essentially a den of iniquity, rife with prostitution and drugs.) Point is... by splitting up these functions, hasn't Atwood described the basic roles that women play within our own male-dominated society, in various different permutations and combinations? To the patriarchy, women are mothers, models, sluts, angels and, when professionals, they are not to aspire to more teaching posts. In Gilead, the lines are clearer; in our own society, aren't most women "supposed to" play some combination of all of these roles?

I get the feeling that most moviegoers are looking for something else in "sci-fi." Here's a new plot twist: The rebels feed Kate some kind of medication that allows her to read the commander's mind while destroying his brain. Wait... that's "Scanners." Oops. Seriously, two of the reviews on this site made spedific mention of Schlöndorff's "horrible", "atrocious" directorial skills. Ahem. Perhaps before they weigh in on the auteur, they ought to see "Young Törless", "Coup de grâce", "The Tin Drum" and all of his other wonderful efforts. As a matter of fact, to insinuate that someone who could bring Grass' Tin Drum to the screen in such a stunning fashion is a lousy director is PREPOSTEROUS. Schlöndorff is a giant of the New German Cinema, and it underscores the ignorance of the Hollywooders when they cast such baseless aspersions.