Nobody even pretends Cora and her colleagues at Women’s Center #8 are educators. Instead, they are talliers of the center’s system of social credit and indoctrinators of the ideology espoused by [Big Handmaid] Kane. Cora always unquestioningly accepted the official orthodoxy and rigidly enforced the rules, until she recognizes the birthmark on young Zinnia’s forehead.
At that point, all the resentment and bitterness she was forced to hide when her baby was whisked away from her, immediately after birth, come welling back up. Initially, Cora merely watches over Zinnia in secret. However, she becomes alarmed when her unknowing daughter volunteers for a pilot program to reverse the declining birthrate. Yes, much to the regime’s surprise, people have had alarmingly fewer babies, even though they would have no costs or obligations with respect to their offspring.
Zinnia agrees to the new government scheme, because she knows it will lead to a better work assignment. However, Cora wants to spare her from the pain she knows will inevitably follow the cruel separation of mother and newborn. Unfortunately, Cora does not yet fully understand how ruthlessly the regime enforces its brave new world order.
Clearly, Motherland was conceived as a rebuttal to The Handmaid’s Tale. Indeed, the propaganda paintings of Kane all bear a distinct resemblance to the wardrobe of Atwood series. However, Nicole Swinford’s screenplay does so quite cleverly—and often surprisingly subtly. While it presents an alternate present day, the technology appears stuck in the late 1970s or early 1980s (at best). While the regime-friendly media constantly trumpets exceeded quotas and increased ration allotments, it also regularly announces new austerity measures—implemented for virtue’s sake, of course. The Soviet-Socialist echoes are unmistakable.
Indeed, Matthews and Swinford skillfully hint at sinister enforcement apparatus lurking just below the surface (and beyond Cora’s sight). Frankly, the Kane-sian world never looks like an overly-stylized Orwellian police state. Instead, the feels like it is confined to a crummy old government building, which is ever so apt.
Character-actress Holland Taylor (from Bossom Buddies and Romancing the Stone) also perfectly suits this boldly dystopian world, delivering a career-crowning performance as Toni, the Machiavellian director of the women’s center. She has the terrifying zeal of a true believer, yet there is a hint of something—dare we say “motherly”—about the interest she takes in Cora.
Motherland is a thoughtful and compelling examination of how the all-powerful state undermines and corrupts personal integrity and the family unit. It offers a much more original and provocative dystopian vision than the wan Happyend, which also opens today (9/12). Very highly recommended, Motherland is now playing at the Kent Theatre in Brooklyn.
