The Handmaid's Tale: Book vs. Movie
Volker Schlöndorff’s 1990 film The Handmaid’s Tale adapts Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, with a screenplay by Harold Pinter. Natasha Richardson plays a woman forced to bear children for Gilead’s ruling class.
From Books Adapted
What changed from the book
Kate starts as a new Handmaid
The movie adapts Offred's story from Atwood's 1985 novel through a changed ending. It calls her Kate; the novel leaves her real name unconfirmed.
It also changes the order of her experience. The movie begins with her capture and follows her into her first household. The book introduces an experienced Handmaid, then gradually reveals her earlier life through memories. Moira changes from a friend she knew before Gilead to someone she meets in training.
The 2017 TV series is a separate adaptation. Atwood's later book The Testaments continues the world of Gilead, but is not part of this movie.
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The movie follows Kate beyond the van
The movie adds Kate killing the Commander with a knife supplied through the resistance. Her apparent arrest becomes a rescue, and the ending finds her pregnant with Nick's child, hiding in the wilderness.
Offred's account in the novel stops when she enters the van, uncertain where it will take her. The book then jumps forward to a scholarly discussion of her recorded testimony. The movie replaces that distant historical perspective with Kate's continuing life.
How it was adapted
Richardson recorded narration that was later removed
Offred's thoughts and memories make up much of the novel. The movie keeps far less of that inner narration.
Atwood said Harold Pinter's screenplay originally included an extensive voice-over. Natasha Richardson recorded it and shaped her performance around the thoughts the audience would hear. Schlöndorff subsequently removed that narration.
About the book and the movie
- Author
- Margaret Atwood
- Year
- 1985
- Pages
- 336Buy book
- Audiobook length
- 12 hr 6 minGet audiobook
- Narrator
- Claire Danes, full cast, Margaret Atwood, Tim Gerard Reynolds
- Series
- The Handmaid's Tale, book 1
Offred serves in a Commander’s household in Gilead, where a religious regime has stripped women of their rights and assigns fertile women to bear children for its ruling families. Her account moves between the restrictions of her present life and memories of her husband and daughter, as forbidden encounters offer uncertain possibilities for resistance or escape.
- Director
- Volker Schlöndorff
- Writer
- Harold Pinter
- Year
- 1990
- Runtime
- 1 hr 48 minWatch on Amazon
- Cast
- Natasha Richardson, Faye Dunaway, Aidan Quinn, Elizabeth McGovern
- Genre
- Drama, dystopian, LGBTQ-related, post-apocalyptic, science fiction
- IMDb
- View on IMDb
Captured while trying to flee Gilead with her family, Kate is renamed Offred and assigned to bear a child for a senior official and his wife. The household subjects her to competing demands, some of them forbidden by the regime itself. Her growing attachment to its driver, Nick, offers intimacy in a life where even private choices are dangerous.
Other adaptations of this book
- 1
The Handmaid's TaleSeries · 2017 · HuluDetails
- Creator
- Bruce Miller
- Writer
- Bruce Miller
- Year
- 2017–2025
- Episode
- 52 min
- Seasons
- 6
- Episodes
- 66
- Network
- Hulu
- Cast
- Elisabeth Moss, Yvonne Strahovski, Ann Dowd, Max Minghella
June is separated from her family and forced into reproductive servitude after a theocratic takeover of the United States. Assigned to the Waterford household, she must judge which gestures of sympathy can be trusted as she seeks news of her daughter and becomes involved in resistance to the regime that has renamed her Offred.
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