I’ve always thought of Rosemary’s Baby as belonging to the subgenre of pregnancy horror, but a revist in the wake of #MeToo revealed it to be much more of a harrowing parable about the abuse, neglect, and silencing of women. All of which makes director Roman Polanski’s involvement—especially after his decades-long avoidance of sentencing in the United States for a 1977 sex crime involving a minor—an especially ugly irony. Based on the Ira Levin novel, the movie centers on Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse (Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes), a young couple who have recently moved into a historic New York City apartment building, where they hope to start a family. Their garishly friendly neighbors (Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer) are hoping for the same thing, but for very different reasons. Gordon, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, is a gas—her Minnie verbally flows from one conversation with herself to the next, so that no one else has a chance of talking—but it’s the men surrounding Rosemary who prove to be the most dastardly, including her husband. (Guy’s excuse after Rosemary’s evening of horror— “I didn’t want to miss baby night!”—is the most chilling line in the movie, because it could easily be offered in a film without any supernatural context.) Farrow admirably bears the burden of carrying the movie’s dread, portraying Rosemary as sharp and wary, but with too many social forces arrayed against her for her to have a fighting chance. Returning to Polanski, there is no denying how crucial the movie’s images—especially in Rosemary’s surrealist nightmares—are to its unsettling power. Rosemary’s Baby taps not into paranoia, or even heightened pregnancy qualms, as much as it evokes a deep suspicion of the patriarchy that deserves to be taken seriously. The call was coming from inside the house.
(9/27/2024)
