Plot Summary
In the near future war rages across the fictional Republic of Gilead and pollution has rendered 99% of the population sterile. Kate is captured after seeing her husband killed and daughter kidnapped while the family tried to escape into Canada. Kate is trained to become a Handmaid, a concubine for one of the privileged but barren couples who rule the country's religious fundamentalist regime. Although she resists being indoctrinated into the bizarre cult of the Handmaids, mixing the Old Testament orthodoxy and misogyny with 12-step gospel and ritualized violence, Kate is soon assigned to the home of the Commander and his cold, inflexible wife, Serena Joy. There she is renamed "Offred" - "of Fred".
She is forced to lie between Serena Joy's legs and have sex with the Commander, in hopes that she will bear them a child. Kate continually longs for her earlier life. She soon learns that many of the nation's leaders are as sterile as their wives. She decides to risk the punishment for fornication — death by hanging — in order to be fertilized by another man who will make her pregnant, and subsequently, spare her life. The other man turns out to be Nick, the Commander's sympathetic driver. Kate grows attached to him and eventually becomes pregnant with his child.
Kate ultimately kills the Commander, then hides from the men who come looking for her. She thinks that the men are the Eyes, the governments secret police. However, it turns out that they are soldiers from the resistance movement, which Nick, too, is a part of. Kate then flees with them, leaving Nick behind in an emotional scene.
In the closing scene, Kate is shown pregnant and alone in a stationary caravan. She reminisces about Nick and the current situation, hoping that once the resistance has won, she and Nick will be together and she will be reunited with her daughter.
Read more about this topic: The Handmaid's Tale (film)
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