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It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

For a made-for-tv movie it's obviously still intriguing enough to have captured the Millennial generations attention and spawned an updated remake. This is ORIGINAL movie based on Margaret Atwood's novel that pretty much follows her book as originally written.The questionable ensemble of actors chosen seem to give this film a disjointed feel possibly due to the lack of chemistry between them. Faye Dunaway as Serena Joy and Ed Harris as the Commander seem more like abusive grandparents to Natasha Richardson's Offred, (Elizabeth McGoverns' Moira only stands out because of her age and garters at Jezebels) STILL a good movie (for network tv) and enjoyable if you want the original tale as written.

This is a nightmare vision of the future. It seems 1 out of every 100 women is fertile (for some reason). The ones who aren't perform slave labor. The ones that are are "sold" off to rich families where they have sex with the husband to produce a baby. Kate (the late and missed Natasha Richardson) is one such servant to Serena Joy (Faye Dunaway) and her husband the Commander (Robert Duvall). Kate wants out--but it seems there's no way.The synopsis only scratches the surface of a VERY dark and disturbing movie. It slowly shows how women are treated and used and it just gets more horrifying as it unfolds. The parallels to Hitler's Nazi Germany are fairly obvious but here we have barren women instead of Jews and gays. The good acting by everybody makes this hard to shake off. Aidan Quinn (as Nick) and Duvall are OK; Victoria Tennant is chilling as a leader of the camps; Elizabeth McGovern is just great as a fellow prisoner who befriends Kate; Dunaway is also very good in her role. Best of all is Richardson. This couldn't have been an easy role but she pulls it off beautifully. She died at far too young an age. This is basically an unknown movie and it's easy to see why--it's far too dark and disturbing for a general audience. However the ending is (sort of) uplifting (and changed from the book). Grim, dark and depressing. View it at your own risk. The ceremony sequences are almost impossible to watch and shocked the hell out of me the first time I saw this.

Margaret Atwood's acclaimed novel, adapted for the screen and turned into a high-minded but posed, uncomfortable human drama, despite an expert cast. Taking place in the soulless distant future, all young women have been turned into child-breeders for wealthy, infertile couples, with Nastasha Richardson assigned to nightmarish twosome Robert Duvall and Faye Dunaway. Elizabeth McGovern plays a lesbian who hopes to make a break for it (every totalitarian society should have one). Certainly watchable, though an icy cold presentation which promises to be much more than it is. Richardson doesn't flash a hint of her feisty personality, though McGovern is very good and Duvall does what he can with a terrible role. ** from ****

While it's true that "The Handmaid's Tale" is a rotten movie, it does have the excuse of being based on a rotten novel. Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood's anti-American screed was lame enough when first published in 1985; having recently reread the book, I can confirm that "The Handmaid's Tale" hasn't improved with age.The sheer preposterousness of Atwood's scenario, her patent dislike of the Colossus of the South and her progressive finger wagging pretty much sink the book. In the movie, though her scenario remains more or less intact, Atwood's ideological preoccupations get short shrift. As a result, the movie does possess a certain entertainment value—providing that the viewer chooses to regard it as a parody or spoof. If, for example, we didn't know that Atwood was serious, the sexual protocols of the Republic of Gilead would seem a stroke of comic genius. So I can't thoroughly despise this piece of cinematic dreck. "The Handmaid's Tale" does for progressive earnestness what "Valley of the Dolls" does for pill popping: makes it seem really funny, though with absolutely no intention of raising a laugh.