Gone to the Movies Now #2: The Handmaid

 The Handmaid opens with one of the leads driving a car. She parks her car and puts on glasses.

This struck me as odd. I've know lots of people who are required, by law, to wear glasses while driving who take them off once the car's parked. (I don't understand this behavior. As one who wears glasses, I like to see as clearly while I'm walking around as I do while I'm driving, but that's just me.) However, I have never met anyone who can drive without glasses who decides to put them on before they get out of the car.

The beginning left me uneasy and that sense of unease didn't leave until about halfway through the movie. None of the leads are telling the full truth. The movie clearly wanted me to feel certain ways about the lead character, but they way that acted in or reacted to situations didn't seem quite right. I couldn't place my finger on it.

I felt the unease for a long time. Like long enough that I was questioning if I wanted to watch the rest of the movie. I wasn't going to leave because I paid my money, but still... did I want to be there?

Then there's an intimate moment when, rather than showing anything, the director moved the camara off the couple and onto an object, which was odd because there was some pretty serious sensuality with naked bodies not long before this scene. Why, I wondered, was that choice made?

And then the shit hit the fan and the movie became more focused and I started to enjoy myself.

I'm not going to say much about what happened, but I will say that I have rarely been so happy to see shoddy police work from a victim blamer.