Hulu's all-too-timely adaptation of Margaret Atwood's novel is one of the spring's best new shows and makes Elisabeth Moss an immediate Emmy contender.

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oss grounds her character in a quest for reclamation—of her autonomy, of her identity, of (should the fates allow) her family. Her comic timing pokes holes through The Handmaid’s Tale’s abiding darkness, and she locates a sense of resiliency in Offred’s private acts of defiance. Her take—and the show’s take—on the character is a distinct blend of what Atwood once identified as the main thrust of Canadian literature (survival) and a gumption most closely associated with the country Offred once called America. This can cause some tonal clash in the voice-over—the mission statement that closes episode one feels like it belongs in a different show—but it also gives The Handmaid’s Tale the necessary verve for an ongoing series. (This should be a limited series, but that’s neither here nor there.) And Moss has to make the conviction count, because it’d be noticeable in all those close-ups if she didn’t.

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Just as much credit goes to The Handmaid’s Tale’s writers, headed up by showrunner Bruce Miller, who have used Atwood’s immortal book not as fodder for a direct adaptation (which would make for a very different TV show), but as a door into another world, one very like our own but with enough changes to make both its horrors and our own world’s terrors more acute. The result is a series that both embellishes and stays faithful to the world of Atwood’s book; as the very last word of the first episode will indicate, the adaptation is poised to remain true to the spirit of the book, if not the exact letter.

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The first three episodes are, appropriately, directed by a female filmmaker, Reed Morano, best known for her work as a cinematographer on everything from the movie The Skeleton Twins to HBO’s Vinyl to Beyoncé’s Lemonade. She brings a confident visual aesthetic to the series that is impossible to ignore yet not excessively showy.

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berzeli said:

It's crazy how much great TV is getting released right now. Hoping this is as good as the reviews suggest it is. If nothing else, 10 episodes of Queen Moss is always a good thing.

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Geist- said:

I'm really looking forward to this. But isn't it a bit early for an OT?

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Pachimari said:

They always go up a week before the show premieres.

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Geist- said:

I'm really looking forward to this. But isn't it a bit early for an OT?

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Pachimari said:

They always go up a week before the show premieres.

I'm looking forward to this one, only know what has been written in the OP.

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Geist- said:

Ah, well, it's not a big deal, but many of the more recent shows I've been following have waited until it was closer to release.

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Rekwest said:

There is a movie about this book?

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Ratrat said:

Very curious to see how they adapted this.
Glad the reviews are positive.

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Shai-Tan said:

I had never read Margaret Atwood but after reading this profile I'm looking forward to this tv adaptation.

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TIME: Why this show now?

Margaret Atwood: The control of women and babies has been a part of every repressive regime in history. This has been happening all along. I don’t take it lightly when a politician says something like a pregnancy can’t result from a rape because a woman’s body knows it and rejects it. There’s an under­current of this [type of thinking]. And then it rises to the surface sometimes. But The Handmaid’s Tale is always relevant, just in different ways in different political contexts. Not that much has changed.

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TIME: There are some differences between the show and the book. Why did you add more nonwhite, nonstraight characters?

Atwood: We’re taking off from now rather than 1984, and there are more multi­racial couples now. In the book I had them being so segregationist, they were just separating everybody and shipping them off the way the Nazis did.

In the show, it’s different. So just as we have cell phones in the plot now, we have to update other things. Although I was setting it in the future when I was writing it, I didn’t know anything about the future. I wrote that thing on an old typewriter in Berlin. We didn’t even have personal computers yet.

Moss: We wanted the show to be very relatable. We wanted people to see themselves in it. If you’re going to do that, you have to show all types of people. You have to reflect current society.

A question I get asked a lot in inter­views: Do you gravitate toward feminist roles? This is a question I struggle to answer because I don’t necessarily feel like they are feminist roles. I feel like they’re interesting women. The Handmaid’s Tale is considered one of the great feminist novels. I actually consider it a human novel about human rights, not just women’s rights.

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Grizzlyjin said:

I didn't know that 3 episodes were dropping on April 26th, that's pretty cool. Lets people get a true taste for the show before the the week to week viewing.

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MrPressStart said:

Too funny. I was in the theatrical release back in the late 80's/ early 90's starring Robert Duvall and Faye Dunaway.

I just had a few parts, and I remember having to stand in armyish clothing in horrible heat with a spring cold. It sucked and I was only like 14 at the time.

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RatskyWatsky said:

On the other hand, Wednesday is the busiest night on TV and I don't need 3 episodes of a single show dropping all at once :|

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Grizzlyjin said:

Elisabeth Moss is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors. Even outside of Mad Men, she has been giving some great performances. Loved her on that show Top of the Lake, and she gave a spectacular performance in this little movie called Queen of Earth.

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Grizzlyjin said:

What I'm probably going to do is save those first 3 for Thursday, Friday or Saturday. I don't really watch anything those days. My CW popcorn shows come back next week too, so it's going to be rough week to week.

Elisabeth Moss is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors. Even outside of Mad Men, she has been giving some great performances. Loved her on that show Top of the Lake, and she gave a spectacular performance in this little movie called Queen of Earth.

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Atwood’s story, which is brilliant, presents quite a challenge for a screen adaptation: The story has to build the world of Gilead, place the action in the context of the real world, and do justice to Atwood’s singular, award-winning prose. Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” is a worthy, heartbreaking adaptation of the text, anchored by strong performances and profound visual grammar.

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whyamihere said:

Do you think Elisabeth Moss realizes of the irony of her working on this while also being a Scientologist? Probably not.

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Giving Booker Prize winner Atwood, who was named to Time’s 100 most influential people of 2017 list today, the adaptation her acclaimed book has always deserved, the Miller-developed Handmaid’s Tale has much to praise besides its spectacular cast. From its narrative excellence, masterful Julie Berghoff production design and agile direction by Lemonade helmer Reed Morano, Floria Sigismondi and others, THT will scare you profoundly in its horrors, astound you in its authenticity and remind us all of how fast the past can become another world.

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You can’t quite call it a bad dream come true, not yet. But given what might be termed “recent events,” it’s certainly cautionary, and more than urgent.

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crackhead_bob said:

Also, can anyone anticipate what advantage this show will have that Man in the High Castle won't?

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With women’s reproductive rights at the centre of its narrative, the series has been praised for its timeliness. Ms Moss has said that the cast and crew “never wanted to show to be this relevant”. But as the Trump administration continues to cut funding and roll back family-planning services, it is easy to hear echoes of its rhetoric on the screen.

Yet “The Handmaid’s Tale” is searing because so many women have no more control over their own bodies today than they did in 1985. What rights they have earned are subject to the whims and political persuasions of men in power. If Ms Atwood’s tale feels nightmarish it is precisely because it is enduringly, and maddeningly, familiar.

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Yet for all the horror of the show, I did not find watching it to be an entirely hopeless experience. The miniseries does not come with the novel’s stress-relieving framing device—in which the Republic of Gilead is being studied as a historical relic, some hundreds of years still further into the future—but Offred, with her sardonic asides, her sense of humor, the disobedience in her soul, if not her manner, is bracing company: She’s in this to survive.

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Just as much credit goes to The Handmaid’s Tale’s writers, headed up by showrunner Bruce Miller, who have used Atwood’s immortal book not as fodder for a direct adaptation (which would make for a very different TV show), but as a door into another world, one very like our own but with enough changes to make both its horrors and our own world’s terrors more acute. The result is a series that both embellishes and stays faithful to the world of Atwood’s book; as the very last word of the first episode will indicate, the adaptation is poised to remain true to the spirit of the book, if not the exact letter.

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“The Handmaid’s Tale,” based on the 1985 Margaret Atwood novel, is a cautionary tale, a story of resistance and a work of impeccable world-building. It is unflinching, vital and scary as hell.

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Watching the news today doesn’t necessarily create the impression that a real Gilead will arise within the next six months, but it feels far more possible than it should, and that makes The Handmaid’s Tale feel like even more of a Molotov cocktail being hurled at a too-complacent society than anyone could have intended when they started making this riveting new drama.

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That Moss, who also has Top of the Lake on her resumé, can scale such dramatic heights isn’t a surprise, even if this is the most powerful she’s ever been. That Bledel — an uneven presence on Gilmore Girls (albeit always better on that show’s serious side) — turns out to be Moss’s equal here is far more unexpected

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The series would be unbearable as a binge, which makes it a perfect fit for Hulu’s more traditional release strategy. (Though the first three episodes will all premiere on Wednesday, it will be weekly after that.) As it is, you may need to take frequent breaks within individual episodes, or else slip your neighbors a note explaining, “These screams you may hear frequently for the next hour don’t represent me being in danger, but just my natural response to a story of fascism and misogyny run amok.”

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RatskyWatsky said:

Sepinwall
Bonus:

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That Bledel — an uneven presence on Gilmore Girls (albeit always better on that show’s serious side) — turns out to be Moss’s equal here is far more unexpected

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RatskyWatsky said:

Another fab OT Oddy <3

I'm very much looking forward to this. I hope it's a hit for Hulu.



On the other hand, Wednesday is the busiest night on TV and I don't need 3 episodes of a single show dropping all at once :|



Oh wow, how cool! Any interesting stories from the set?

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MrPressStart said:

It was a while back but I remember everybody being really friendly to me. I had this one scene where I had to run down a chained section and try and escape off of a dock. The que to turn around was a gun shot. I got right to the edge to jump when the shot occurred, so it looked kinda odd because of the timing.
I was pretty close to Faye Dunaway and the other lady in a few scenes. I guess because I was a young teenager I got to be in like 5 or so scenes. I just remember having a cold and it being hot as fuck and having to wear heavy military clothing.

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Mercury Fred said:

First three episodes are up!

Just watched episode one.... holy shit. Show of the year? I need to process a bit before I can really talk about it. I'm blown away and absolutely horrified.

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