Binge With Me - Shows : The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale – Terrifying tale of dystopian tomorrow!!

Based on Margret Atwood’s dystopian novel, this Hulu original show is gem of it's genre. It’s dark, dystopian, gritty, horrifying and takes real guts to watch it. Yeah! Terrifying yet worth watching every single bit. When I say it is horrific and dark, it really is not typical horror show but it is the situation the dystopia that brings out the grey colors on the screen.

The Handmaid’s Tale is set in near future depicting the futuristic world problems. This is the future where world is struggling to procreate, environmental changes has led to massive infertility in women and is deemed as the wrath of god. Set in what we today know as USA, in future USA is ruled by another country/establishment more appropriately, patriarchy pleasing narcissists called as Republic of Gilead. Gilead is built on extremely radical religious fundamentalism, where everything runs by the notions of God’s grace and the sacrifices that comes along to achieve the greater good, the blessed event of childbirth. Thus, to achieve the greater good occurs this bizarre chain of events where women all over the country are stripped of their basic human rights and men are promoted as one true figure of authority.

Fertile women in the country are separated and tutored to become Handmaids to the rich/upper ranked barren couples. The only job these women has, is to go to the barren household, get naturally impregnated (ceremonially raped) by the Commander of the house, deliver the baby, hand it over to the barren couple and move to some another barren house to fulfil their sole womanly purpose, childbirth. 

Story revolves around the woman named June often referred as Offred (naming convention for Handmaid’s in Gilead), her struggle to find her lost daughter Hannah and to reunite with her husband Luke, who lives as a refugee in Canada. Elisabeth Moss plays the primary protagonist June Osborn/ Offred and she plays like she embodies it, breathes it and lives it. Her journey is rugged, she is helpless, bound hostage, she has weaknesses, her modesty is compromised but she fights, she fights for herself and others trapped inside the hell hole of Gilead. Her hopes of reuniting with her daughter one day leads her to other protagonists and changes everything for her where we see her hopes turning into ambitions. Her friendship with other handmaids like Janine and Emily, Rita the Martha  and her carefully showcased romantic relationship with Nick (Max Minghella) the Driver is what gives us a silver lining as a viewer. 

Talking about the primary antagonist, Mr and Mrs Waterford (Joseph Fiennes, Yvonne Strahovski), a barren couple where June serves as handmaid are well narrated and wonderfully acted to make us all hate them from our core. Ann Dowd’s Aunt Lydia is bloodcurdlingly strict and cruel leader to the handmaids and a true believer of Gilead's principles. Honestly, everything in this world is a major antihero to the story of fistful protagonist. Glorification of Gilead's robbing human rights, the principles, laws (banning women of alphabetization, anti-abortion, adultery, homosexuality etc.) leading to absurd punishable processes (group murder, police brutality, genital mutilation, public hangings, body mutilation) is what makes the setting brutal and real dystopian.

From the direction POV, this is near to the masterpiece if genre is considered. Bruce Miller is not only a good storyteller but he knows what he is doing to make this a chef d'oeuvre it is. Empowering visuals accompanied with beautiful music, well placed twists and magical portraiture of human emotions sends us on phantom expedition annihilating fate. 

The way June's story is narrated shows how creators have broad views, how it is just not another story built on textbook feminism where meek women are helping each other.  In my opinion, The Handmaid's Tale has many faces and it definitely goes way beyond the borderline feminism, it is the tale of survival. 

Binge With Me -

What - The Handmaid’s Tale (3 Seasons, Season 4^th premiering on 28^th April, 2021)

Where - Amazon Prime Video, Hulu

Who - Elisabeth Moss, Yvonne Strahovski, Joseph Fiennes, Ann Dowd, Alexis Bledel, Max Minghella

Rating - IMDb - 8.4/10, CineMantic - 4.8/5