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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