The Handmaid's Tale

[politicat]

4. Vermeer, via the Hell filter.

If you've read the book, there's additional material and that material doesn't pull punches. If not, stay away from any thread anywhere, because spoilers.

Like the book, it starts a little slowly. Trust that -- it needs to open up slowly.

I thought the casting for Serena Joy was... sketchy... but the actor has the chops. Also, the time setting shift (the book would have been set in the late 80s or early 90s; the series is set probably no later than 2025) makes the shift more plausible, given that wealthy/powerful women today spend much more time, effort and money maintaining their looks (and are more successful at it) than the women of the same class 30 years ago. (See: Geraldine Page, age 50, in "The Trip to Bountiful", for which she won Best Actress in 1985, or Dame Maggie Smith, who was 40 in "A Room with a View" in 1985, versus Nicole Kidman, who turned 50 this year. It's sort of frightening, actually, how good we've gotten with beauty technology.)

I don't know if I'll be able to finish it, to be honest. I love the book, and I love what they've done, but I also realized that the books is my emotional kyptonite, a mood regulator in printed form. I knew I couldn't read it if I was edging up on a depressive episode, because it would knock me down hard. And this is punching me harder than the book does. Which, in a perverse way, says a lot for the quality of what they've done.