30 years ago, the Canadian author Margaret Atwood published The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopian feminist novel set in a futuristic America run by religious fundamentalists. Pollution and sexually transmitted diseases have rendered the large majority of people infertile; the few women who can still reproduce are trained as “handmaids” and forcibly sent to serve wealthy and powerful men by bearing them and their wives’ children.

The novel, Atwood’s best-known work, has since become a modern classic, a staple on English literature reading lists, and an Emmy Award-winning television series starring Elisabeth Moss. But while the novel hasn’t been out of print in the three decades since its debut, and the streaming/television adaptation enters its fourth season this year, the film has been almost entirely forgotten – which is a true shame considering the storied history of the film’s conception. Rejected by studios who claimed, “A film for and about women … would be lucky if it made it to video” and difficulties experienced while casting the lead role of Offred (Sigourney Weaver dropped out when she became pregnant, Meryl Streep was considered but declined) made it seem as if the film would never get off the ground. Finally, Natasha Richardson accepted the part of Offred and Volker Schlondorff was attached to direct.

Schlondorff, a pioneer of New German Cinema, was eager to break into Hollywood. He interpreted The Handmaid’s Tale as a thriller using vivid cinematography and a moody, synthesized score – combining subtlety and melodrama to cinematically interpret the dystopian hell that is Gilead.

Ultimately the film was panned by male critics. Female reviewers were less offended … “As visions of a hellish, dehumanizing future go, this one could never be mistaken for a man’s,” wrote The New York Times’ Janet Maslin. “With its devilish attention to polite little touches, its abundant bitchiness … The Handmaid’s Tale is a shrewd if preposterous cautionary tale that strikes a wide range of resonant chords.” The Washington Post’s Rita Kempley praised the story of “surrogate motherhood run amok in a society dominated by iron-fisted pulpit thumpers turned fascist militarists.”

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