In the near future, war rages across the Republic
of Gilead, formerly the United States of America,
and pollution has rendered 99% of the
female population sterile.The country,
under the rulership of a totalitarian patriarchal
theocracy, is designed in such a way that only
benefits the high class. The lower class members
are separated from their families and forced into
taking up demeaning jobs. There is little or no
justice, and the country’s citizens are deprived
of their fundamental right to freedom.
The movie opens up with Kate, her husband, Luke,
and daughter, Jill, attempting to cross over to
Canada from the Republic of Gilead in an attempt
to escape the hardships of the country and give
their daughter a better life. Unfortunately for
the family of three, they’re unable to reach
their promised land as the Border Patrol
soon discovers them. After a horrendous
encounter with the Border Patrol officers
that leaves Luke dead, Kate is taken into the
system while Jill is nowhere to be found.
After being arrested, Kate, alongside
some other criminally convicted women,
is transported to a holding facility where
they are tested. When the results come in,
Kate and a handful of the women receive positive
results. They are immediately separated from the
others and are transported to another location.
Here, Aunt Lydia, the woman in charge of the “Red
Centre,” an academy where Handmaids are
trained, meets them and explains that
they will all become Handmaids.
She further reveals to the women that
they were selected as Handmaids primarily because
they’re part of the Republic of Gilead’s 1% of
fertile females. Apparently, pollution caused the
majority of the country’s women to become sterile,
exempting these lucky few. After Aunt Lydia’s
introductory speech, the girls are transported
in a bus to the Red Centre. On the bus, Kate
meets Moira, and the two become friends.
The next day, Aunt Lydia instructs the fertile
women on their duties as Handmaids. They are
to act as concubines to the wealthy but barren
couples of the country with the primary purpose of
bearing children for them. Their duty is perceived
to be an act of service to God and their country,
and their training comes with a good amount
of scripted group chanting and ritualistic
violence to ‘discipline’ the girls.
Not long after, Kate is taken into the
home of the Commander, aka Fred as his
newest Handmaid. The Commander’s wife,
Serena Joy, welcomes Kate into the house, but
it’s obvious she’s displeased by her presence.
Serena immediately lays down the rules for Kate
to adhere strictly to. She then proceeds to ask
Kate if she wants to have a baby, and the
latter says yes since that is her duty as
a childbearing concubine. Serena approves of
this and tells Kate they can work together.
Soon, Kate is indoctrinated into the cult of
Handmaids and becomes an official Handmaid who
walks the streets in red garments. After
the indoctrination ceremony, she returns
to Fred’s house, where Serena shows her to
her room and gives her further instructions.
Kate then receives her new name, Offred, which
means she belongs to Fred- aka the commander.
That night, she dreams of her daughter; Jill.
The next day, Serena and Kate have a short rite
with the Commander. He and Serena take turns
reciting a Scripture from the Old Testament
and then pray that they would be blessed
to have a child through Kate. At night,
Kate and the Commander have their first
‘ceremony’ with Serena present.
When Kate wakes up the next day, the
kitchen staff gives her instructions
on how she’s to spend her day. She’s to wait
for a fellow Handmaid named Ofglen. Together,
the duo are to make a trip to the grocery store
to pick up supplies for their respective houses.
Later, while walking to and from the store, Kate
and Ofglen do some light talk on the on-goings
of the Mayday war against a resistance movement
in the country. They also encounter a pregnant
Handmaid on their way back, who everyone
applauds for fulfilling God’s duty.
As time passes, it becomes evident from
Kate’s behaviour that she is unhappy with
the turn her life has taken. One night,
Kate is about to steal a pair of scissors,
probably to commit the unthinkable. But she’s soon
discovered by Nick, the Commander’s chauffeur,
who has been giving her flirtatious glances
for a while. He doesn’t report Kate. Instead,
the both of them make out passionately before Nick
breaks the news to Kate that the Commander needs
her by 10 pm in his office the next night.
When day breaks, Kate asks Ofglen what happened
to the last Offred since there have been two other
Handmaids who served the Commander before her.
However, Ofglen claims that she
doesn’t know anything about it.
Meanwhile, the Commander inquires to his wife
about what she thinks of their latest Handmaid,
to which Serena replies that she’s
better than the previous ones.
That night, Nick escorts Kate
to the Commander’s office.
Thinking it’s another ceremony, Kate
covers herself with her veil. However,
the Commander locks his door and tells her
to remove it because this meeting is not an
official visit. He then reveals that he intends
to get to know Kate better as a person because
he thinks if he gets closer to her, she will be
more at ease and become a better Handmaid.
The Commander suggests that he and Kate play
Scrabble, which they do. After Kate emerges
as the winner of the game, The Commander
offers her some strawberries as a reward,
claiming that he knew she would win the game
because she was a librarian. He then informs
her that he will go to the Capitol for a week, and
while he is away, Kate shouldn’t forget him.
The next day, Serena invites Kate outside to
assist her with gardening. She engages Kate
in a discussion and tells her that the only
reason she gets Handmaids is that she wants
a baby who would make her life whole.
Serena then lets Kate know that she’s aware
of the fact that Kate has a daughter. When
Kate asks if Serena knows what happened to
Jill after she was captured, Serena says she’s
equally clueless and will try to find out.
Three months after Kate’s residence in
the Commander’s house, she’s still not
pregnant. This makes the family anxious, and Nick
drives Kate to a hospital to run some tests.
Meanwhile, Kate’s doctor tells her that
there’s absolutely nothing wrong with her.
However, he knows the Commander and suspects
that he’s the one who’s sterile because he
has tried twice before to have a child. When
Kate asks if they also test men for sterility,
the doctor says they don’t and that Kate will
get the blame if it doesn’t work out.
Surprisingly, he offers to help Kate by
impregnating her. The doctor says that no one will
know it’s not the Commander’s child, and that he
has helped many other women get pregnant this way.
Kate politely declines, but he presses on by
warning her of the consequences if she doesn’t
become pregnant. When he begins to make further
advancements, Kate threatens to scream for help,
and as a result, he finally lets her go.
Back at the Commander’s house, Kate is
given one more month to get pregnant, or
else she’ll be up for reassessment.
In the next scene, the commander and Kate play a
game of cards, and Kate is the winner once again.
When she asks for her prize, the Commander gives
her a stash of magazines that were supposed to
be burned because such material is illegal.
Meanwhile, Kate asks the Commander to do her
a favour by giving her hand lotion because she
needs it for her dry skin. At first, he obliges,
but after a while, he rethinks and mentions that
his wife might smell it on her and get furious.
When Kate argues that she’s barely even close
enough to Serena for her to notice her scent,
the Commander agrees to give her a hand lotion
on the condition that she doesn’t use it on the
nights of their ‘ceremony.’
During their next ceremony,
the Commander gets carried away and is
about to touch Kate sensually. However,
Serena immediately stops him, fearing that he
might be more attracted to Kate than her.
Later that night, Kate confronts the
Commander and tells him to never try
touching her like that again because Serena
can get angry and send her off to the colonies,
where the standard of living is unbearable.
Kate then uses the opportunity to ask what
happened to the last Offred. The Commander
reveals that she couldn’t conceive, so she
committed the unthinkable. Hearing this, Kate gets
taken aback and she quickly leaves the office.
Meanwhile, Serena is getting impatient while
waiting for Kate to conceive. One day, she calls
Kate over for a talk on the issue. Kate asks if
she has discovered anything about her daughter,
but Serena says she hasn’t. Serena
then asks Kate if she has had any
pregnancy signs, and the latter says no.
As they keep talking, Serena points out that
Kate’s time is running out. She admits that her
husband might be infertile and suggests that Kate
should sleep with another man so that she can
become pregnant. Kate reminds Serena that she
would be killed for that, but Serena brushes
it off by saying women do it all the time.
When Kate asks her who she has in mind, Serena
tells her Nick is a good fit for the job because
he’s loyal to them. Eventually, Kate agrees to the
idea, and the two decide to keep it a secret.
The night Kate and Nick get intimate, and
this marks the start of their affair.
The next day, Serena confesses to Kate that
Jill is alive. Apparently, she had known all
along and was hoarding the information from Kate.
She then gives Kate a photograph of her daughter,
which makes her emotional. When she inquires
about Jill’s location, Serena merely assures her
that she’s in good hands and is well taken
care of. Kate asks when she can see her,
but Serena breaks the sad news to her that
it’s impossible because Jill wouldn’t even
recognize her as her birth mother.
That night, Kate goes to Nick’s room
to confide in him. She tells him that she
needs to see her daughter. Nick knows her
wish can’t be granted, so he decides to
comfort her instead while she mourns.
Some days later, all the Housemaids watch the
extraordinary event of their fellow Housemaid,
Offwalder, giving birth. Serena also witnesses the
event and becomes more impatient, telling Kate to
get pregnant soon. Meanwhile, Ofglen advises Kate
to study the Commander and get to know everything
about him, claiming this would be helpful.
The next time Kate and the Commander meet at
the Commander’s office, Kate mentions that the
Commander is a mystery to her and she would love
to get to know him better. They then have small
talk, and Kate uses the opportunity to study
the Commander and his thought process.
Sometime later, all the women attend an
event where they witness the verdict of a
Handmaid who was found guilty of seduction
and fornication with a medical staff member.
According to the Handmaid’s training, situations
like these are inevitably the woman’s fault,
and her punishment is death. Everyone watches in
delight as the other Handmaids pull the rope that
eliminates the Handmaid in the public centre.
Next, another man is brought in and convicted
for the assault of a pregnant Handmaid.
All the Handmaids in the centre are furious,
and they eventually beat him to death. However,
Kate and Ofglen seem to be the only sane
women there, and Ofglen reveals that she
is a part of the resistance. She then tells
Kate that the man wasn’t guilty. Instead,
he was one of their best men.
As they walk back to their houses,
Ofglen asks Kate what the Commander wants from her
since he sees her privately. Ofglen then reveals
that the Commander is the security chief, making
him one of the resistance’s biggest targets.
Almost immediately, a vehicle explodes behind the
women, and a group of armed men start shooting
sporadically. The men are members of the Mayday
resistance, so they spare all the Handmaids in
the area. Following this, Ofglen tells Kate that
the resistance may need her to kill The Commander
as he has been their main obstacle for a
democratic state. Kate is sceptical about the
plan at first, but when she realises that it’s her
only chance to meet her daughter, she agrees.
Later, when Kate returns to the Commander’s
office, she is surprised when he tells her
he’s taking her out and gives her a
fancy black dress and boa to wear.
Nick is their chauffeur, and while in the
car, Kate has to lie down on the floor during
checkpoints because, according to the Commander,
wives aren’t allowed where they’re going.
When they arrive at the destination, which
is revealed to be an illegal nightclub,
the Commander introduces Kate to everyone
as Mary Lou. They both dance, have drinks,
and sleep together before eventually leaving.
Once they get back home, Kate goes to Nick’s
room and tells him that she’s pregnant
for him and isn’t going to give up their
baby to the Commander and his wife, who she
detests. She then tells Nick that she wants
to escape and asks him to join her.
When Kate returns to her room to rest,
she finds on her dressing table a note from Ofglen
saying “10 pm tomorrow” and a knife beside it.
The next day, Kate goes to meet with Ofglen to
tell her she found the note, but when the girl
turns, Kate realises that the Ofglen she knew has
been replaced. When she asks the unfamiliar woman
where Ofglen is, the lady claims to be Ofglen.
Meanwhile, Serena finds out that Kate has
been sleeping with her husband outside the
‘ceremonies.’ She confronts Kate about it and
insults her before storming out of the house.
By 10 pm that night, Kate prepares herself to
eliminate the Commander. When she enters his
office, he’s about to fire a gun at her, but when
he sees it’s Kate, he lowers his guard. Kate then
uses the opportunity to kill him. Immediately,
Nick and some other police officers
arrive at the house and arrest her.
However, the arrest is a ruse because the
police officers are actually undercover
Mayday resistance who help Kate escape.
In the next scene, Nick and Kate have an emotional
farewell because Nick has to return to join the
Mayday resistance. He tells Kate that he’ll keep
sending her messages and she should run away and
take care of their child until he returns.
The movie ends with Kate
hiding safely in the mountains,
thinking about her first daughter, Jill, while
also awaiting Nick’s baby’s arrival.
