Hulu’s 10-episode adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is coming in April 2017, and the network just released some lovely first-look images. Elisabeth Moss stars as Offred, a woman trapped in Gilead, a newly-formed dystopian society that only values her ability to aid repopulation efforts.
All images: Hulu
Offred is tasked with producing a child for the Commander, the high-ranking man to whom she’s assigned (Joseph Fiennes).
It’s an oppressive, eerie world — carved from the former United States after a terrorist attack propels an oppressive regime into power (the 1985 book is set in 2005). As you might guess, Offred is the kind of character who doesn’t accept her role meekly. In the book, we learn that before Gilead was formed, she was married and had her own daughter. The Hulu series will follow her desperate efforts to be reunited with her child in a world that has become unbelievably cruel to women.
Along with Moss and Fiennes, the cast of Hulu’s Handmaid’s Tale includes Samira Wiley (as Offred’s friend from university, Moira, who’s also forced to be a Handmaid) and Yvonne Strahovski (as the Commander’s wife, a former televangelist).