The movie and book for The Handmaid’s Tale were different in displaying the story. I liked reading
the book and the movie made it easier to understand some of the things that I did not get in the book.
One of the main things in the book that made it difficult for me to read and comprehend was the continuous switching of past and present voices from Offred. In the book she would come across something and it would trigger her memory and she would have a flashback and relate that experience to what she was just doing. Offred in the book had a lot of flashbacks to the academy where she was being trained to become a handmaid, in the movie it never showed any of that. In the movie it clearly differentiated the present and flashbacks that Offred had. I was never confused on when Offred was having a flashback or when it was showing her in the present.
The book showed Offred on a more personal level because the reader heard her thoughts and feelings. In the movie the viewer can only see is the emotion that Offred shows on her face and by her body language. I like reading the book better because I could read and sense her feelings. It made me as a reader understand her feelings and be able to relate to her. In the movie I could imagine how she would feel but could not be positive because the actress did not show a lot of emotions.
The movie did a better job of clarifying little things that the book mentioned, but did not go into detailed. The opening part of the movie shows Offred’s flashback of how she came to the Republic of Gilead. In the beginning of the book I was not clear on what had happened to Offred, her daughter and husband. The movie displayed her husband being shot by the guard, which appeared as if he died. In the book she goes through a few scenarios on what had happened to her husband. The ending on the movie was not clear either to me, I did not know what had happened to Offred and Nick and the baby that they had conceived together. The book left the reader to imagine what had happened to Offred in the end, but the movie showed her being freed and living in the mountains waiting for Nick to come back with her daughter. I believe this is the way the director of the movie wanted to portray the ending the way they wanted it to end.
The movie showed more excitement when Offred was receiving her gifts from the Commander. In the book the reader could tell that Offred liked getting the gifts, but it was not clearly described how much she like them. In the movie she showed how much she enjoyed the lotion and magazines by her facial expressions. The movie showed them more as gifts then just things she received from the Commander.
In the book during the birth ceremony it seemed a lot more upbeat and happy then it did in the movie. In the book it seemed as if everyone was happy and excited for the new birth. In the movie the expression on the wives and other handmaid’s faces did not show a time of joy. Similar instance happened during the ceremony where they murdered the man who had raped a handmaid. In the book the reader could feel how angry Offred felt in the way this man was being punished. In the movie she seemed more nonchalant and was more of an observer. In the book the reader understood her feelings, but the movie did a better job of showing what had happened to the man. It made it clear how horrible it was and how involved the other handmaid’s were.
Overall I think that I would rather watch the movie because it made more things easier to understand, but the book was a very emotional book and that made it easier to relate to. The movie and book were very closely tied together.
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