A generation after the book was published and became a movie, “The Handmaid’s Tale” has been turned into a jolting TV series, representing a huge step up in class for Hulu. Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel has already been politicized, but stands on its own as a best-yet project that enables the streaming service rub elbows with the pay-TV elite.
“Mad Men’s” Elisabeth Moss stars as Offred, the central figure and narrator of a nightmare alternative-reality, where a totalitarian order has seized control, forcing the few fertile women that remain able to bear children for the “leaders of the faithful,” while their barren wives look on.
Clad in robes and hoods, the women must speak in hushed tones of reverence, saying things like “Under his eye” to indicate their fidelity to the rules.
How society sank to this point drips out via a series of flashbacks, beginning with a harrowing sequence in which Offred seeks to flee with her young child. “So many things are forbidden now,” she intones in almost hypnotic fashion, not knowing whom she can trust or what will land her in trouble.
Given the efforts to curtail organizations like Planned Parenthood, it’s hardly surprising that the themes of Atwood’s novel would be cast in political hues, beginning with the notion that the population ignored signs of creeping totalitarianism until it became too late. What emerges, though, is a perfectly creepy drama that plays like the series version of a “Black Mirror” episode.
Beyond Moss’ terrific performance, the cast is topnotch, with Yvonne Strahovski (“Chuck”) as the severe mistress of Offred’s new home, “The Gilmore Girls'” Alexis Bledel as her forced companion (“We go everywhere in twos”) and Joseph Fiennes as the Commander, a privileged master of the universe who embodies the privileged, male-dominated ruling oligarchy.
Filled with striking imagery and a nagging sense of dread, the series also exhibits a disarming darkly comic streak, as Offred’s looks and asides underscore the absurdity of her situation.
Hulu lacks the distribution of several other premium platforms, but the positive reviews and chatter surrounding “The Handmaid’s Tale” already qualify as what feels like a breakthrough for the service.
While the timing might be a happy (or depending on one’s political affiliations, unhappy) coincidence, this “Tale” of women forced to live “under his eye” is just the kind of fare destined to put Hulu on a lot more people’s radar.
“The Handmaid’s Tale” premieres April 26 on Hulu.