Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

buckikris In a futuristic fascist world, a majority of the men and women are infertile. There is only a small percentage can bear children. In the beginning of the film Kate(Natasha Richardson) who later become Offered, is caught. She seems to be escaping with her husband, and daughter. The family runs into guards from the Republic Of Gilead. They kill Kate's husband, and take her daughter from her. Kate is taken to a colony where the majority of women are taken; and her daughter to another family. Once she arrives at this camp, she is processed and separated. Women are screen, tested, and put into groups. Kate(Offered) is put into a group where women who are fertile, become Handmaiden's. Those that can't reproduce are considered slave labor. The Handmaidens are supposed to be the lucky ones. Offered meets Ofglen( Elizabeth Montgomery), who was caught begin a Lesbian. She was labeled as a gender traitor, but spared execution because she can reproduce. Offered and Ofglen get to know each other; and quickly become fast friends. Once the bus arrives at the handmaid training camp, they both think of ways to escape. The women are assigned rooms, and daily they have this type of submissive training. The group consists of numerous women, who will be one day picked to become a surrogate for a well off family to produce their child. They are brainwashed to believe this is right. A society that takes women to breeding camps to be bred like cattle, is very scary.Once Offred and Ofgled think of a plan, Offred is picked to be a Handmaiden for The Commander( Robert Duvall) and Serena(Faye Dunaway). Once there Offred is forced into this bizarre love ritual. She lies between Serena and The Commander. It is really demoralizing, what these Handmaids are forced to do and become. These rituals are done several times. Supposedly once a Handmaiden conceives, they are sent back to the camp until her due date is near. In Offred's case she goes though numerous rituals with no success. On day she is approached by Serena, to use a different method, so she will mot get sent to the work camps. The men are never blamed if they are the ones who are sterile. Serena tells Offered if she's interested she will introduce her to Nick(Aidan Quinn).In the meantime Offred Helps Ofglen escape from the camp. They devise a plan to distract the warden. Ofglen tells the warden a toilet is overflowing in the bathroom. The warden checks it out and walks into a trap. Offred and Ofglen tie her up, and Ofglen escapes to a new life.As for Offred the horror continues, until she eventually makes good on Serena's plan. She develops a strong relationship with Nick, and eventually becomes pregnant. She know this could be her opportunity to escape and wants Nick to come with her. She plans to kill The Commander, so she can escape and raise her child away from this hell. At first, it looks like she may get away, until she is caught by Serena. The guards arrive, along with Nick. At first she thinks Nick is going to turn her in, but he quietly tells her to play along. Nick becomes a mole, but eventually aids in her escape. Near the end Offred is up in the hills still waiting for Nick. It becomes a waiting game, and she is unsure she will ever see him again.This is a classic movie, when I first watched it; it freaked me out. I recommend this movie to anyone, it's an independent film and it's rare. When I watch this film it reminds me of the far right Republicans. It's a scary thought, but does our government have to much control over the citizens. This movie will make you think about that question.

JoeB131 As a rule, movies based on books are usually not as good as the book. I think there are only two exceptions to this rule, and both are because the original book was no great shakes to start with. The one was Jaws, a mediocre potboiler about a small-town melodrama with a few paragraphs about a shark in there... Steven Spielberg had the good sense to throw out everything but the Shark, and then let his fine cast of actors carry the film.Then we get to "A Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood. Whenevery I hear a feminist say that the "Christian Right" wants to turn America into a version of "A Handmaid's Tale", I reply, "You mean they want us to be a nation of bad prose and disjointed narrative?" The Horror. The Horror.The director had the good sense to make some changes. First, he had the good sense to dump Atwood's non-linear narrative and run the story from Offred/Kate getting caught trying to sneak into Canada, to her eventual escape. Secondly, he made Offred a dynamic character, and not the limp dishrag who gets pushed around throughout the novel. The movie is further elevated by Faye Dunaway and Robert Duvall (their first paring since Network, which is a much better example of social satire.) The plot, for those unfamiliar is that there has been an ecological disaster where 90% of women are infertile, and a theocratic government takes over, renaming the US "Gilead" and forcing the few remaining fertile women to become baby machines. The fertile women become "handmaids", drawing inspiration from the Bible story where Abraham fathered a child on Sarah's handmaid, Hagar. The heroine is pawned off to an official called "The Commander", and his wife, former Christian TV personality Serena Joy. (It should be pointed out in Atwood's narrative, these were code-names, not the actual characters' names.) Of course, the couple are hypocrites, not really believing in the Bible. The heroine is rescued by rebels out to topple the government.Now, Atwood said her inspiration was her concern that feminism was selling its soul by aligning with the Christian Right in the 1980's against pornography. (In reality, feminism became obsolete when it was hijacked by abortionists and radical lesbians, alienating most mainstream women.) She never made her characters anything above charactictures. Duvall and Dunaway actually put more of an effort, probably what elevates this film above ind-film garbage, but again, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.If you are a fan of Atwood's work, you might actually enjoy this film. Then again, if you are fan of Atwood's work, you really need to develop literary taste.

SatyrIX thoroughly abject, plain Jane production design and vanilla mush of a story. The premise of this lunatic, virginity-obsessed oligarchy that America has somehow become is merely unexplored window-dressing to a soporific and pedestrian story arc. All in all this film stands as an anti-adaptation of the source material. Hard to believe Volker Schlondorff was a participant in turning this one out. Aside from consideration of this doleful picture it is rather amusing to notice that to a comment every positive review of this film is a transparent excuse for righteous soapboxing against misogynism in society rather than the film per se.

tmg380 While it's true that "The Handmaid's Tale" is a rotten movie, it does have the excuse of being based on a rotten novel. Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood's anti-American screed was lame enough when first published in 1985; having recently reread the book, I can confirm that "The Handmaid's Tale" hasn't improved with age.The sheer preposterousness of Atwood's scenario, her patent dislike of the Colossus of the South and her progressive finger wagging pretty much sink the book. In the movie, though her scenario remains more or less intact, Atwood's ideological preoccupations get short shrift. As a result, the movie does possess a certain entertainment value—providing that the viewer chooses to regard it as a parody or spoof. If, for example, we didn't know that Atwood was serious, the sexual protocols of the Republic of Gilead would seem a stroke of comic genius. So I can't thoroughly despise this piece of cinematic dreck. "The Handmaid's Tale" does for progressive earnestness what "Valley of the Dolls" does for pill popping: makes it seem really funny, though with absolutely no intention of raising a laugh.