Genre: Drama/ Thriller
Number of episodes: 10
Year: 2017
Starring: Elisabeth Moss, Yvonne Strahovski, Joseph Fiennes, Max Minghella, Alexis Bledel, Anne Dowd
Description: Set in a dystopian future, a woman is forced to live as a concubine under a fundamentalist theocratic dictatorship.
Review: Let me just start by telling that it’s a fantastic first season of this show. “The Handmaid’s Tale” is oppressive, compelling and credible enough to believe that people would really to make this a reality.
The series is based on the book by Margeret Atwood and it’s gripping and frightening. And it doesn’t let you go easily.
In “The handmaid’s Tale”, a picture of the future of the United States is presented that is not really rosy, to put it mildly. The United States has come into power from a group of religious fanatics who have renamed the country the Republic of Gilead. This republic is full of betrayal, suspicion and oppression. Most women have become infertile. The women who are still fertile are placed with families that are high up in the republic. There they have to become pregnant by their ‘masters’. They have to give up their real name to show how insignificant they are.
We follow June Osborne who has to change her name into Offred. This well-educated and free-spirited woman is ‘lucky’ enough to be fertile. She is placed within the family Waterford: Serena Joy Waterford and her husband Fred Waterford. Because of this, June lost her everything: her job, her husband and her daughter. Despite the hell she is living in, June is determined to find her daughter. She’ll do anything for that.
You get an inside look on how this society works and its rules. But you also get to see flashbacks, where you see who everyone was before it all went down and what happened to them and to the US. And why it is the way it is.
As said, the series is oppressive, it’s edgy with regard to the status of women in a society. And it does not hesitate to address social issues. All this is portrayed brilliantly but painfully and June’s role is played excellently by Elisabeth Moss.
Before you start this series, it’s best to know as little as possible. This way it’s more shocking and it adds to the TV experience.
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