Review: "Rosemary's Baby"

 

POLANSKI, Roman (Screenplay Writer & Dir.), “Rosemary’s Baby”, 1968, Paramount Pictures Corporation/William Castle Enterprises, Inc., USA

 

This particular film has been on my “To Do” list for awhile now. It’s always seemed to be a pretty good fit for my general interests but somehow I always kept putting it off: there was usually something else with a more splashy cover that caught my eye (“Dracula 2000”, “Boa Vs. Python” or “Frankenfish”), or Polanski’s name had re-surfaced in the media once more (and deservedly so) as a whipping-boy for child abuse and statutory rape. So, the moment would pass and “Rosemary’s Baby” would slide back onto the “To Do” list again. It’s not that I dislike Polanski’s movies either: “Repulsion” and “The Ninth Gate” are brilliant works which I do not hesitate to recommend. I guess it’s possible to like the films without liking the director. A few weeks ago however, we got 10 copies of the DVD into the store so there was no real way to put it off this time.

Interestingly, I seem to be not the only one out there caught in the same predicament. On sites like IMdB there are many plaintive querents asking if they should make the effort to see this film. Well, after seeing it myself, I can wholeheartedly say, “do yourself a favour” and see it.

 

The story (based on the book by Ira Levin) revolves around newlyweds Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse who rent a new apartment and settle in to establish themselves in the neighbourhood. The only cloud on their personal horizon is that Guy is an actor, known for some local, unheralded, theatre-work and a cheesy TV commercial. His prospects are not bright, and early on we discover that a recent audition was resolved in favour of an acting rival. There are also the spare and scattered references to historical suspicious deaths in the stately building, and these are familiar fare for the horror aficionado. Rosemary meets the neighbours’ tenant – an ex-junkie whom they took in and reformed – and has a stilted conversation with her; soon afterwards, this girl commits suicide, jumping from an upstairs window.

After moving in, Rosemary makes a decision to fall pregnant; Guy is ambivalent about the project but, after dining with the nosey neighbours, he suddenly becomes keen. The neighbours turn into a fountain of advice and information, bothering Rosemary at odd times each day and brewing herbal infusions to help the process along. Many of these she ditches, including, after a few spoonfuls, a doped mousse that was designed to knock her out.

While partially unconscious, she becomes aware of her unwilling participation in a strange ritual attended by her husband and the many residents of the building, all naked and decidedly sinister. At the height of the ceremony, a shaggy, horned being approaches and rapes her. She passes out.

The next morning, Guy dismisses Rosemary’s strange “dream”. He explains that he didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to impregnate Rosemary and so took advantage of her sound sleep, thus explaining the scratches she finds all over her body. From this point on he becomes more distant (although his career takes off to brilliant heights) and the neighbours grow more officious and interfering, even forcing her to dismiss her obstetrician and see another doctor of their own choice.

Bothered by this interference and unable to arouse Guy’s sympathies, Rosemary turns to a playwright friend for advice. He takes her seriously and tells Rosemary that he will research things for her; he tries to arrange to meet her but falls into a coma from which he never recovers. He manages to send Rosemary a book on witchcraft, from which she begins to suspect that her dream was no dream at all and that she is carrying the child of Satan. Guy remains obstinately deaf to her reasoning.

 

Like most of the best horror material, this movie styles itself as a metaphor, thus rooting itself firmly in shared, common experience. Nothing in this film will be unfamiliar to any woman who has experienced her first pregnancy: who do you trust? What information is correct? Is my doctor trustworthy or should I get a second opinion? How do I relate to all these other women - from whom I am obviously completely different - when they tell me that what I’m feeling is normal, or just the same as their own experience? Questions of medication – “natural” versus commercially-produced – are addressed, as are the tensions within a marriage, where the uneasiness and worry of the male partner are interpreted as loathing and disgust. Finally, the issue of post-natal depression and alienation are discussed.

 

Obviously, in this particular tale, Rosemary is convinced that the Devil is literally in the details. That being said, this roller-coaster could be the tale of any one of hundreds – thousands – of pregnancies, where things goes wrong. I’m sure that most women experience at least a handful of the myriad things that go wrong with Rosemary; I’m pretty sure that Satan isn’t generally responsible, though.

 

I’m not a Mia Farrow fan; I find her hesitant, faun-like, gamine thing annoying in the extreme. In this however, she rises above it and delivers some grit by the end. Physically, she’s the perfect choice to play Rosemary: waif-like and vulnerable is her stock-in-trade. By the time she gets around to whipping out the carving knife and embarking on a home-invasion of the neighbouring property, I’m right behind her cheering her on. John Cassavetes as the opportunistic Guy is also a solid choice: he has the conventional good looks of a ‘60s heartthrob; but his delivery has a vague, louche quality that instinctively earns your distrust. The neighbours are brash, but good-intentioned (or are they?) and Ruth Gordon won the Best Supporting Actress gong for her suitably creepy work here.

 

Far be it for me to ruin the ending of a great film, let me just say that if – like me – you’ve been putting this off, don’t leave it for too much longer: you’re missing a treat. I was very surprised by the frank discussions of pregnancy, menstruation and other issues that most other films of this vintage would have studiously avoided and it hooked me in with its decision to not play coy. In some ways this movie is on the cusp of turning into a classic along the lines of Anna Karenina: everyone’s heard of it; everyone knows what it’s about; so no-one reads it and everyone waits for the movie so they can watch that waste of space, Keira Knightley, yet again pretend that - as an actor - she’s anything more than a clotheshorse while she indelibly ruins a great read for humanity. (Ahem.) Anyway, check it out for yourself – at the very least, the longer you leave it the greater the possibility that someone will blab and spoil it for you, and this might well be your reaction:

 

Four tentacled horrors.