Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12617 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-02-16
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 104 minutes

Synopsis
The end of the 20th Century finds a repressed society run by puritans and the majority of women barren. Under this new regime fertile women are handmaids and are placed among important childless couples to become pregnant. Kate is one such woman...co-operating means survival...

Customer Reviews

It's not too late
This film, starring the late Natasha Richardson, is a timely reminder of the evils of absolute power, even within institutions which set themselves up as bulwarks against these evils. It is a story of a future where human fertility has diminished hugely, and this has led to the creation of a class of fertile handmaids, inferior to the wealthier class which enslaves them. The story focuses on a young woman, played by Natasha Richardson, who is fertile, and who therefore becomes a womb-slave for a wealthy infertile couple. This couple use the woman to conceive and carry their baby, but in the most oppressive and restrictive of circumstances. The young woman finally makes a bid for freedom.

The story took common social institutions, namely religion and patriarchy and developed what would happen if these grabbed absolute power, in a very dystopian vision of future western society. It is chilling to look at what these have done in the past eight years, with the escalation of tensions between the western world and the arab world. However, while this story focuses on what would happen to the status of women in such a scenario, with the appalling consequences for standards limiting torture and degradation, the lessons can still be learned. It's not too late.

Early '90s Whimsy With Big(ish) Ideas...
Margaret Atwood tends to fit large, femino-centric ideas into her overblown novels, and "The Handmaids Tale" is no exception. As it goes, the novel in question is rather sleek and devoid of fat (for Atwood). It tells the story of Offred, a fertile woman sold into quasi-sexual slavery in a dystopian future where being barren is taken for granted - As well as fundamentalist Christianity and rotten dress sense (Well, it was made in 1990). As is usually the case in these scenarios, Offred becomes embroiled in a burgeoning Resistance Movement, whilst avoiding the jealousies of the wife of the man whose seed she is supposed to bear. Did I say "seed" just then? Well, with this type of film you tend to use words like that.

Welcome to the totalitarian state of Gilead - Inevitably post-nuclear and dependant on the Book of Leviticus for guidance (why do survivors of Nuclear War always find God? Surely nihilism would be a more logical step as society breaks down). Studded with large-ish actors of the day like Natasha Richardson, Faye Dunaway, Aidan Quinn and Robert Duvall (does he even bother doing anything but phone-in roles nowadays?), Atwood's slightly more complex novel is boiled down into a brutish commentary on women's rights in a World where such quibbles cannot be allowed to exist if survival is achieved - At least for the elite. In all truthfulness, it would seem unfeasible that this film would raise anybody's ire, female or male... It just seems too far detatched from reality to be even remotely on the horizon. Watching a film such as this reminds one of just how superficial the films were of this period, all "Weekend at Bernies", "Days of Thunder" and this doozy. Blame George Bush Snr and all his new taxes. The post-Reagan / Gulf War era was full of uncertainty for the American Public, but at the time nobody could think of an effective way to express it.

In short, it's hard to recommend a film such as "The Handmaid's Tale" on the basis that it's more of a peculiar artefact than a story to be taken seriously in a World where Terrorism is the Rule of Thumb. Still, hats off to Optimum for releasing these long-forgotten films (which they've been doing a lot of recently), even if the target audience is so small. Watch if you're bored, or haven't left your burrow since 1993.

Awful adaptation
This is a dreadful adaptation of an excellent book by Attwood. The story is rich and subtle about the hypocrisy of society to women and how extremism can creep in behind the mask of plausibility. It has a surprisingly optimistic ending which this awful film dissipates.

This is a shockingly simplistic post apocalyptic "love" story. It is hard to credit that Pinter wrote the screen play and some normally excellent actors bothered to turn up. They must have been horrified by the results.

If you have read the book - don't buy.
If you haven't read the book - buy the book instead of sepnding any money on this travesty.