On H List of Movie Reviews

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The Handmaid's Tale (1990)

Rate: 8
Viewed: 11/16

Handmaiden
11/16: The feminist version of 1984, The Handmaid's Tale is something different for the sci-fi genre and deals with dystopia.

The strong cast makes the film watchable, and it includes Natasha Richardson (who died in 2009 during a skiing accident at 45), Robert Duvall (who got inspired which resulted in The Apostle), Faye Dunaway (who planned to quit the movie early but was persuaded by the author to stay on), and Aidan Quinn. It's hard to find a bad performance among them.

However, the dark story needs to be developed more to bring clarity to the dystopian world. There are a lot of questions that have gone unanswered. What's exactly going on in the war? What's outside the "utopia"? Why do women wear specific colors? What do they mean? What's the nation's belief system? I guess it's the movie's hint: read Margaret Atwood's book.

All in all, The Handmaid's Tale is an odd picture that can be considered a small gem.