Rosemary's Baby

This is the golden era of television, and this new format will completely change the way we consume moving-image narrative. Now we take the opportunity to watch a drama in the same way we read a novel, in episodes rather than all at once.

Hollywood often adapts the novel with limited success. It's difficult to fit the details, and drawn out the often vast timelines, of a novel in a 90-minute form. The television format has allowed producers to go back to novels that have become wildly popular feature films and readapt them to make them much longer. But longer doesn't necessarily mean better.

"Rosemary's Baby" is an adaptation that must assume most audiences know the twist ending. Successful adaptors would convert external plot thrills into internal character development in order to create tension. Unfortunately, the filmmakers of this particular miniseries seem to think that sensationalism, gore and special effects will make up for the missing substance and lack of suspense.

This adaptation primarily diverges from the original by moving from a quirky and eccentric apartment building in New York to an opulent and mysterious Parisian setting. The ghosts of an antique city, and the enchantment of living among a sophisticated class of people, seduce Guy (Patrick Adams) and Rosemary Woodhouse (Zoe Saldana) after Guy lands a teaching job at the Sorbonne.

Here the mentors, who take a strange interest in the couple (especially after Rosemary becomes pregnant), are not the kooky oddballs Roman and Minnie Castevet; they are the powerful and infinitely wealthy Roman (Jason Isaacs) and Margaux (Carol Bouquet).

This version was also shot on a budget much higher than the modest $3.2 million of the original. But more money doesn't mean better quality, especially when it comes to suspense and horror. ("The Blair Witch Project" would gain nothing by being shot in 3D for IMAX.)

The original film version (directed by Roman Polanski) advanced a counter cultural film style, and the idea of casting the legendary independent director John Cassavetes in the role of Guy was a testament to this. Cassavetes often blurred the lines between documentary and narrative. The realism of low budget filming techniques and the sense that Rosemary's terror could be a prenatal depression make this version all the more suspenseful.

The remake has no particular political or stylistic agenda. It moves quickly into the supernatural, and the effect is like waiting four hours for the end of a joke when you already know the punchline.

Like any good Faustian tale, Guy advances in his career at the expense of others, but a more interesting script would have focused more on this conflict and the way it affects Rosemary. After all, this story is from her point of view. She not only has the stress of a pregnancy, but friends and acquaintances are dying in strange ways all around her --�and she begins to feel that Roman and Margaux are after her baby.

Thought the acting and production values are quite good, because it is an overt fantasy, this version lacks the human depth that the audience's imagination provides.

Sometimes the special features can help you appreciate a series more. But in this case, the featurettes "Fear is Born: The Making of 'Rosemary's Baby'" and "Grand Guignol: Parisian Production Design," only confirm that the artists really missed the mark in their intentions to readapt for television the novel by Ira Levin.

"Rosemary's Baby"
Blu-ray, Not Rated
Run Time: 170 min.
$19.99
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