We are in the near future and it's dark times. America has fallen, replaced by the religious fundamentalist Gilead (though a civil war seems to be raging so not everywhere is under Gilead's control it seems). Pollution has wiped out much of human fertility, those women who can still give birth are now a valuable commodity, not that they see any of that value themselves of course. Women like Kate (Natasha Richardson) are trained to become obedient "handmaids", basically given to rich families to bear their children for them.
Kate is given to the Commander (Robert Duvall) and his wife Serena (Faye Dunaway). Rough unpleasant sex with religious ceremonial overtones follows. Kate also strikes up a friendship with the Commander's driver Nick (Aiden Quinn). There is more to Nick than it at first seems, indeed more to Gilead's supposedly strict religious society than it at first seems too...
The world of Gilead is monstrous, especially because of so much that goes unexplained as much as what we see. Hypocrisy and violence is of course at the centre of the society which is well portrayed here. An excellent film.
