This was published 3 years ago
The masterful TV adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale has a pressing urgency
The Handmaid's Tale is one of the most eagerly anticipated drama series of the year. Based on the 1985 novel by Margaret Atwood and set in a dystopian near-future, it has assumed a pressing relevance. Her chilling vision of a brutal fundamentalist patriarchy recently catapulted back on to bestseller lists, and the 10-part series adapted from it has become a hot property. But even for those involved with the series, its current pertinence is a surprise.
Australian actress Yvonne Strahovski (Chuck, 24: Live Another Day, I Love You Too) plays the Commander's wife, Serena Joy. "It's amazing how topical it feels today," she says, "and that's been fascinating to watch. We started shooting it in Toronto, Canada, pre-presidential election in the States. Then we had the election and we were still filming when the headlines started coming out about women's rights being at the forefront of people's minds, and then the Women's March happened. We couldn't have planned for this, but it's become extremely relevant: it really feels like it's speaking to people's fears about what could be."
"It was important to me to humanise her," says Yvonne Strahovski of her character Serena Joy (right).Credit:George Kraychyk
As showrunner Bruce Miller (The 100) explained to Variety, "Margaret Atwood's story has proven to be relevant in almost any time period, but I think with Americans and the world so focused on extremists in politics right now, it definitely draws attention to the show."
The tale of Offred (Elisabeth Moss), the handmaid of the title, unfolds in the former United States, which has become the Republic of Gilead. Once a mother with a loving partner, she's now a sex slave assigned to the Commander (Joseph Fiennes) and she's been allocated a new name, a patronymic marking her as the possession of a powerful man: Of-Fred.
Offred (Elisabeth Moss, left) struggles to survive as a reproductive surrogate for a powerful Commander and his resentful wife, Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski).Credit:George Kraychyk
In this toxic new world, fertility is a rare and prized commodity. Women with viable ovaries have been conscripted into the service of the state, assigned to the households of the elite to produce the next generation.
The drama depicts Gilead as a country drained of colour, an eerily quiet place rendered in muted greys. Women's status is denoted by the colour of their clothes: red for the handmaids, blue for the wives, browns for the servants – the Marthas – and the Aunts who oversee the handmaids. By contrast, the world recalled in flashbacks is cast in warm tones. For Offred, the past is sometimes tantalisingly present: her life with Luke (O-T Fagbenie) and their daughter, her friendship with Moira (Samira Wiley).
The first season, on which Atwood worked as a consulting producer, features departures and developments from the novel. Some characters' trajectories are altered or expanded, back-stories are fleshed out and cliffhangers adeptly inserted. In a key change, Serena is younger, not afflicted by arthritis and with a hint of Claire Underwood evident in her cool, blonde, ramrod-straight wife.
"I believe that they were initially going to go for an older woman, but they changed their minds, which is thrilling for me," says Strahovski. "It adds an amazing chemistry between Offred and Serena because you have these two women who are of the same age pitted against each other. One has power and one does not and I think that the idea of fertility (as an issue between them) is very fresh. It adds a lot of meat: there's jealousy and hopefulness and anger, all kinds of juicy things that we can play with together."
The series has also given Serena a back-story which suggests that, in spite of her status, she too has lost her voice and her power. "I didn't want to be a character that you could easily hate," says Strahovski. "It was important to me to humanise her, which ended up being a bit of a task because she's obviously unpleasant and incredibly brutal. I really had to peel back layers and get into what made her tick, what was her vulnerability and what was at the core of her heart.
"There were a lot of conversations with Bruce Miller about allowing Serena vulnerable moments, so that she's not just icy, even though she is icy a lot of the time. The notion of rejection kept coming up: she's no longer able to work, to read and write, or to connect to her husband intimately. That strips her of so much of her identity and, when you add infertility, it leaves her in a sad, bitter place."
Strahovski, who hadn't read the book before her audition, says, "The pilot was so well-written: there was so much sub-text. It's a dream come true if you have a script that's dripping in the unsaid moments: it's all in the nuances. Every little twitch and blink of the eye counts and every breath means something because it's so constricted. The walls are so high that any little movement that isn't part of the rule book is noticed."
Miller explains that the environment of extreme repression "really lends itself to the thriller genre. Offred is constantly in mortal danger and violence can come at her from any direction. That's the core of the show."
Though a harrowing and suspenseful sense of dread is pervasive, Miller says, "I'm very optimistic about humanity, and one of the things you'll notice about the show is that whenever anybody runs into a random person, that person almost always helps them. Offred is like a friggin' ninja keeping herself alive. I find hope at the end of every episode that she's survived, usually with her wits and the power of her intellect. There are a lot of things that [work] against her, but the fact that she survives is the hopeful part. It's not a grim show, it's not a hopeless show. There's tons of emotion and connection. There's kind of a despair porn aspect of [some TV] and I don't believe in that."
As a result, he's constructed a compelling tale in tune with its times as it examines the liberties sacrificed in periods ruled by fear and rocked by political upheaval, the fate of a poisoned planet, and a woman's struggle for survival.
WHAT The Handmaid's Tale
WHEN Thursday, July 6, SBS On Demand