15 Terrifying Reviews of "The Handmaid's Tale"
Margaret Atwood's 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale shot to the top of Amazon's best-sellers list in February, shortly after Hulu released teasers for its faithful and gorgeously-executed adaptation - and shortly after Trump's inauguration. Coincidence? With the show's premiere set for April 26 (the first three episodes will drop at once), many critics are making connections between the dystopian world imagined by Atwood and the reality of America today. Here, 15 reviews that will leave you shook.
1. "Hulu’s adaptation absorbs more than entertains, plunging viewers into its alternate reality first and filling them in on the details later. As much as Offred is the camera’s subject, she’s also the camera herself, observing the goings-on in this place that looks like the modern-day United States, but for a few key details." - AV Club
2. "...When The Handmaid’s Tale was first published, authoritarianism and feminism had a rather different context than they do today. Or did they? The story of 2017 has been one of global movement towards conservatism, even as the language of progressivism has become increasingly more sophisticated. Violence motivated by religion, by hatred of women, or by the sweet spot where the two overlap dominates the news, whether that is a rampaging shooter in America or an ISIL raid in northern Iraq. Sexual harassment cases dominate the news; sexual assault is an unsolved problem at college campuses; abortion rights are nationally highly controversial. The Handmaid’s Tale, in Atwood’s own words, is a dystopia that takes implication to its furthest logical ends. What persists about the novel is how jarringly familiar its regressive world is, despite its hyperbole." - Variety
3. "If you’ve been keeping up with talk of Hulu’s adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, you’ll know the main praise has focused on the fact that the series’ portrait of a dystopian future has never felt more real or more relevant. After watching the three episodes provided to critics, I can confirm that this is absolutely true - and it shouldn’t be ignored ... its haunting echo of fears about the United States’ current political administration create another layer of exceptionalism." - Collider
4. "In the current mood, The Handmaid’s Tale comes across as a quiet, profoundly unsettling what-if. The first three episodes made available for this review are an admirable work of adaptation and execution; Atwood’s premise, then and now, describes a situation that seems at first outlandish, yet its plausibility has a way of creeping up on the viewer, much as it crept up on the society it depicts. The Handmaid’s Tale sets off an alarm in the viewer, showing how the smallest freedoms are the first to disappear, followed by a radical reordering of one’s world." - The Washington Post
5. “In Trump's America, everything is political, and all of pop culture becomes commentary, whether it wants to be or not. [...] But you won't see a more timely or essential onscreen story this year than Hulu's extraordinary rendering of Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel The Handmaid's Tale, reimagined as a fundamentalist nightmare for the Mike Pence era. [...] As childbirth became a national obsession, women's rights were gradually stripped back and America transformed into the Republic of Gilead, a militarized religious dictatorship promising a 'return to traditional values.' That line is one of many that strikes uncomfortably close to real-world political rhetoric.” - Harper’s Bazaar
6. "[The cast’s] performances - and the show’s consistent sense of textural, lived-in realism - anchor the drama in something beyond speculative sci-fi, making the story feel less like a quasi-fictional fable than an entirely possible preview of what’s to come." - Entertainment Weekly
7. "On the day it comes to boil - when women’s bank accounts are frozen, their employment terminated, their assets transferred to their nearest male kin - June and her best friend, Moira (Samira Wiley) join a band of ragtag protesters waving handmade signs. It’s a scene that could have been ripped straight from January 21 - except that the police open fire, jolting Moira and June awake to the new reality, too late. Therein lies a warning: Are our civil rights more precarious than we realize?” - In These Times
8. "It's an urgency and uncomfortable resonance that has only grown between the time I watched the premiere in January and then the second and third episodes ahead of the show's April 26 premiere. [...] Regretfully, the 30-plus-year-old work has become a story for the very time and place we're living in." - Hollywood Reporter
9. "It would be easy to frame Hulu's new drama series The Handmaid's Tale as a beneficiary of extraordinarily good timing. Its source material, Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel, is one of two modern classics to receive a sudden and sustained boost in discussion in the months since President Trump's election." - Time
10. "Inevitably, viewers, especially politically left-leaning ones, will probably find themselves wondering whether the results of the 2016 election cast an even more ominous pall over the show. With women's rights again on the chopping block under a Trump administration, and a common refrain from critics on the left to resist normalizing Trump, it's difficult if not impossible not to draw parallels between the show and real-life events." - TV Guide
11. “The Handmaid's Tale elegantly feeds the flame of resistance right now by making us realize that even this world... that is in so many ways less than it was even a year ago, is still something we can lose, and therefore still something worth fighting for." - The Playlist
12. "It’s a harrowing look at could happen when the rights we’ve fought for and won in a democracy are threatened and lost because of complacency. In other words, it’s a story that could be about our society today if we not careful." - TV Fanatic
13. "The overarching dread of The Handmaid's Tale is that the world beyond the handmaids' white, winged veils feels a heck of a lot like something that could, one day, play out in our own. Unsettling, no?" - TV Line
14. "'Could The Handmaid’s Tale really happen?' isn’t the question anymore. The question is now 'Is it already happening?' Are we seeking any reason to separate and isolate those who are different, who might not fit in? Are we letting fear make us less free?" - Indie Wire
15. “Those new to the story may find it eerily similar to the nightly news, but I promise, it really was written thirty years ago." - Den of Geek
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Related: All About Hulu's Gripping New Adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale
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