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Thursday, May 3, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ARTS
‘Handmaid’s’ is
uneven, urgent
When Margaret Atwood’s novel
“The Handmaid’s Tale” was first pub-
lished in 1985, America was in her
Reagan years. A fervent, nascent reli-
gious right, certain their politics were
sanctioned by scripture, set forth to
fundamentally
reshape
American
public life. Last spring, Hulu’s TV
adaptation of the novel debuted as
the Moral Majority’s vision was real-
ized in the form of a
Trump-Pence admin-
istration eager to stoke
the flames of bitter
culture
wars.
And
now, the show returns
to Hulu following a
national cultural reck-
oning with systems of
power and the men who exploit them.
At its best, dystopia takes those
elements of contemporary society
to narrative extremes, unsettling us
with their uneasy familiarity and leav-
ing us wondering: Could it happen
here? Mary McCarthy wrote in her
New York Times review of the novel
that “The Handmaid’s Tale” lacked
the “shiver of recognition” necessary
to shock and warn, but the power of
the show’s second season — more
vivid and horrifying than the first —
lies precisely in its ability to offer us
a world that resembles ours; the sea-
son’s timely arrival in this political
moment gives it a renewed sense of
urgency and importance.
The first season of “The Hand-
maid’s Tale” ends where the novel
did: The pregnant handmaid Offred/
June (Elisabeth Moss, “Mad Men”)
steps into the back of a van, neither
she nor the audience certain of her
fate. This forces Season 2 to advance
beyond the pages of the book and it
quickly finds its footing as it expands
Margaret Atwood’s world, fleshing
out the oppressive, theocratic Repub-
lic of Gilead and venturing outside its
walls. Emily (Alexis Bledel, “Gilmore
Girls”), who befriended June last sea-
son, has been banished to the Colo-
nies, toxic concentration camps for
failed handmaids and women who
have sinned.
The introduction of the Colonies
brings a new aesthetic dimension to
an already visually sumptuous show.
If the well kept households of the
Commanders and their wives recall
the painterly elegance of Vermeer, the
Colonies are brought on screen in the
style of Andrew Wyeth, muted and
wistful, washed in gorgeous browns
and pastels. Like in last season, the
camerawork veers between portrait-
like and Kubrickian, using claustro-
phobic shallow focus to evoke the
devastating personal wreckage of
Gilead and crisp, haunting tableaus to
remind of the regime’s sheer might.
Most striking are this season’s
flashbacks, tender impressionistic
scenes of life before Gilead. In the
first season of “The
Handmaid’s
Tale,”
these mostly served
to establish relation-
ships and motivations.
Now, they seem a bit
more pointed — acting
as roadmaps or whis-
pered
warnings
of
how tyranny might slip into our world
unnoticed. In one, June casually asks
her husband Luke (O.T. Fagbenle,
“Looking”) to sign a form so she can
pick up her birth control prescription.
In another, a stern nurse insists on
calling June “Mrs. Bankole” despite
June’s repeated reminders that she
goes by her maiden name. This world
on the brink of totalitarian takeover is,
the show would like us to know, eerily
similar to ours.
For all its quiet, poignant moments,
though, “The Handmaid’s Tale” still
suffers from a frustrating unwilling-
ness to leave anything up to the imagi-
nation. The first two episodes of the
second season almost seem to revel in
female pain, leaning fully into the sort
of horror that felt far more understat-
ed last season. What should we make
of a show that subjects its women to
such brutality while basking in femi-
nist glory? Gendered violence is the
defining feature of the lives of Gil-
ead’s handmaids — maybe the gore
is a necessary evil — but the restraint
with which it was depicted in the first
season is so lacking now it verges on
unwatchable.
Luckily, the show is grounded in
lucidity by Moss, whose every line and
glance are charged with an intensity
and rawness that make this easily one
of TV’s best performances. Her fellow
Emmy winners Bledel and Ann Dowd
(“Good Behavior”) as Aunt Lydia are
mesmerizing to watch. It’s largely
thanks to these leading actresses that
“The Handmaid’s Tale” remains the
most beautiful, searing show on tele-
vision. Praise be.
Ryan McDonough talks
post-graduate ‘Groove’
TV REVIEW
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
Still from ‘Groove’
ARTIST IN PROFILE
MAITREYI ANANTHARAMAN
Daily Arts Writer
“The
Handmaid’s
Tale”
Hulu
Season 2 Premiere
A week ago, The Daily spoke with
alum Ryan McDonough, whose
debut film “Groove” tells the story
of Melanie, a street performer in
New York as she prepares for a
music competition. The film has an
aura of reverence for New York City
and features original music and
recorded live in the New York sub-
way. McDonough graduated from
the University in 2016 and went to
work immediately on the film with
fellow classmates. “Groove” is cur-
rently available on Amazon, iTunes,
Xbox, Hulu, Google Play and Vimeo.
In a phone interview with the Daily,
McDonough spoke about the pro-
cess of making the film and shares
his personal experience as a young
filmmaker.
The Michigan Daily: What was
the process of creating “Groove”?
Ryan McDonough: Me and my
friends, from the beginning, were
inspired
by
independent
film-
makers like Joe Swanberg, Mark
Duplass or Lena Dunham who
thought that the only way to make
a movie is by doing it. So, my junior
year of college, toward the end of
the year, me and Joe Biglan, who
was the editor on the movie, got
together and planned on making
something within our means. That
summer, I wrote the first draft of the
script and my senior year, in the fall,
I took an independent study class
with Jim Burnstein and rewrote the
draft under his mentorship.
TMD: What were those plans?
Were you working with anyone
else?
RM: We had a team of me, Joe Big-
lin, Nikki Horowitz and a few other
people where we would meet once
a week and figure out logistics. We
changed things once we brought on
Billy Offer and Zach Bruch, who are
the two producers of the movie and
Michigan kids too. They were very
good about steering the direction
of the movie and making it a reality.
Our first big win was a grant from
Panavision, who sent us a tractor
trailer worth of equipment for free.
It was insane.
TMD: What came next?
RM: Over winter break, Joe and
I went back to New York, and to
help prepare with the film, we
interviewed a couple dozen subway
musicians throughout the city to
make the story more realistic. We
then launched a kickstarter cam-
paign and raised about $20,000.
We now had a decent-sized bud-
get, and recruited other kids in the
Screen Arts and Cultures program
at Michigan and some recent gradu-
ates so most of the crew was Michi-
gan students or recent alum. And
then, instead of going somewhere
for spring break, we posted the cast-
ing call back in New York every-
where online. We first filtered all
the casting in Michigan, and then
did in-person auditions in New York
as follow ups.
TMD: What was the process of
auditioning roles? Who did you end
up selecting?
RM: All the main characters, most
people and some of the core crew
and cast members are actual musi-
cians that have performed on the
subway. Our lead actress, she was a
full-time musician before she got on
Broadway. I was deciding between
her and someone else and then saw
a tape of her submission from NPR’s
Tiny Desk and found that she was
the voice. When I told her that
she got the main role, we went
to one of her concerts at Rough
Trade records in New York to
surprise her. She was playing the
cello, but it was indie rock music,
and I thought it was the most
badass thing. We changed the
story to fit around her. The char-
acter had to play cello.
TMD: After the film was com-
pleted, what was the process of
distribution?
RM: After Joe and I edited
it back at Michigan, there was
a long period where nothing
happened. We had an indus-
try screening in LA for a couple
agencies in December. I naively
assumed that I would shoot the
movie right after college, that
it would get into Sundance the
following year and launch our
careers. The idea for “Groove”
first came about in April 2015
and now it’s three years later,
finally coming out.
TMD: Did you play any fes-
tivals?
RM: We starting playing fes-
tivals last year. We played the
Long Island International Film
Expo where we won Best Direc-
tor, we played the Fort Lauder-
dale International Film Festival
where we won Best American
Independent Feature Film and
then we played the St. Augustine
Film Festival. Someone saw the
movie at one of those festivals
who was able to connect it to
Gunpowder and Sky, the distri-
bution company who is releasing
it.
JACK BRANDON
Summer Managing Arts Editor
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com