The Handmaid's Tale
by Volker Schl?ndorff
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DVD details
Actor: Aidan Quinn, Elizabeth McGovern, Faye Dunaway, Natasha Richardson, Victoria TennantDirector: Volker Schl?ndorff
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 109 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-12-11
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of The Handmaid's Tale
DVD Review: The Handmaid,s Tale
Summary: 5 Stars
What a great movie!!! I love the story,thumbs up to the writers. Makes a person think if you wonder about the future.DVD Review: Exceptional, Moving & Facinating
Summary: 5 Stars
This review was written by my wife: This is one of my all time favorite movies. I think that the plot was well described by other posters, but I have to say that I find this movie so interesting, thought provoking and moving. I own it and have watched it at least 10 times.
As entertainment, it's completely captivating from start to finish. The characters are well developed and you really feel strongly for Natasha Richardson's character. I see where someone else didn't like the acting, but I find it very believable. The story has a sci-fi twist, but it actually seems like something that could really take place. As in every good sci-fi, the culture and look of this world is very well defined so that the movie is believable. It's just simply fascinating on so many levels to watch this story play out.
I haven't read the book, and I can understand that the movie doesn't necessarily stay true to it. However it's still a fantastic movie. It's a major cautionary tale about what could happen if people full of hate, racism and religious ideas that twist the bible for their own purposes were to gain control of this country.
I highly recommend this movie to sci-fi fans, drama fans and to those who are interested in the message of this movie.
Please note that this movie does have scenes where sex acts are taking place that are not consentual. Although body parts are not revealed, it's explicit and clear about what's happening.
DVD Review: No cartoon mice, not even 1!
Summary: 1 Stars
I saw this film about 18 years ago, on a first date when we really wanted to go and see Flatliners but that was sold out, and we had to see this garbage instead. There was no second date, and I blame this film. I had blanked the memory from my mind until now. If you want to see a film about a childless future, go and see Children of Men instead, which isn't perfect, but it is gritty and portrays a rather more realistic dystopia.
Mind you, if you want to see a really mental dystopic future society, watch "Zardoz", that has Sean Connery wearing a belly dancers costume and flying around in a big giant head! Magic.
DVD Review: Thought-provoking,disturbing.
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie grips you and doesn't let go. Very disturbing.....It is a movie about a society in the future where infertility is the norm and fertility is a prized possession which is used to provide offspring to the members of an elite group of people/government. Women who are fertile are used as "handmaids" or as vessels to provide the offspring....once their babies are born, they are taken from them and given to the elite members of society. Haunting!!DVD Review: Great Story - Fabulous Storyline
Summary: 4 Stars
I heard some friends talking about some other movie that reminded me of something I saw 18 years ago . . . on PBS no less. The "Handmaid's Tale" - it's rather "1984" meets "Code 46." And what better cast could you ask for - Robert Duvall, Faye Dunaway, Aidan Quinn (very young looking!) - it's totally bizarre how a failed country or maybe race attempts to turn itself around with ridiculous freedom robbing rules and procedures . . . Hats off to all Bureaucrats! Definately worth a watch.
Description of The Handmaid's Tale
With "cool eroticism, intelligence and intensity" (Playboy), this eerie futuristic thriller,based on Margaret Atwood's controversial and critically acclaimed best-selling novel, is filled with "large themes and deep thoughts" (Roger Ebert). Boasting a phenomenal cast, including Natasha Richardson (Nell) and Oscar(r) winners* Faye Dunaway (Network) and Robert Duvall (Tender Mercies), this film "dazzles with its ingenuity and shocks with its outrageousness" (WNCN Radio)! In the not-so-distant future, strong-willed and beautiful Kate (Richardson) possesses a precious commodity that most women have lost and most men want to control fertility. Forced into a brain-washing boot camp that turns fertile women into surrogate mothers for social-elite men and their infertile wives, Kate thinks she's made out well when she's assigned to an eminent partyleader (Duvall). But when she learns that he's sterile, she's faced with the impossible choice: produce him an heir or die! *Dunaway: Actress, Network (1976); Duvall: Actor, Tender Mercies (1983)Set in a time when a buildup of toxic chemicals has made most people sterile, Volker Schlondorff's film offers a disturbing view of a society under martial law in which fertile women are captured and made into handmaids to bear children for rich and infertile matrons. The film unfolds from the eyes of newly converted handmaid Kate (Natasha Richardson). She is trapped in this mysogynistic society which both deifies these fertile women as prized possessions and condemns them as whores. Throughout the story Kate has to cope with the jealousy of the woman she serves (Faye Dunaway), the advances of her sleazy military husband (the Commander, played by Robert Duvall), and the loss of her daughter, who has been shuttled off to a similarly aristocratic setting. She also falls in love with one of the Commander's security guards (Aidan Quinn), who sympathizes with her plight and potentially offers her a way out. Throughout The Handmaid's Tale, issues of feminism, abortion rights, male dominance, and conservative religious politics all come under fire. Some may view the film itself as antifemale considering its concepts, but it is quite the opposite. Instead it shows how only through solidarity can women bring down an overriding patriarchical mindset. The film, which works from Harold Pinter's screenplay adaption of Margaret Atwood's novel, features strong performances from those mentioned as well as Elizabeth McGovern and Victoria Tennant. --Bryan Reesman
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