Tormenting and agonising in all the right ways, Polanski's chiller about a woman's forlorn descent into grim territory makes for slow burning, strained viewing.

Rating: 7/10 (31 March 2011)

Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby is imbued with this underpinning sense of terror; this sense of dread or horror at what 'might' be, it is a remarkably well played horror/thriller near faultlessly encompassing both the natural and the supernatural within one realm of a world but always playing everything straight-faced and in a gruesomely suggestive way. The text is a pure and unadulterated piece, so much so that it is living proof that precisely why it is that keeping everything in suspense and refraining from necessarily showing your contents in all its inglory is a million times more effective than full on, bloody horror violence and petty 'jumps' along the way to an obligatory genre denouement. The film's top trump might very well be in the way its director flawlessly maintains that balance much later on in the film by the time certain reveals and revelations have unfolded; in a lesser film the foreplay and suggestion prior to the shocking disclosure might very well have been the film's substantial core, but instead of wilting for a final act of frills-and-spills of whatever nature, Rosemary's Baby arguably pushes on from its provocative routes and steps up a gear into more agonising territory, in what is rather-an impressive demonstration of construction and tempo to a film of this ilk.
The film is a quite engrossing drama, a film teasing and bedeviling the audience with two realities, one of which would lead one to assume it is a gritty, urban and somewhat everyday drama set in New York City about a woman slowly loosing her mind as she balances the moving into a new apartment; the pressures with some neighbours she comes to be wary of and the desiring of motherhood which leads onto pregnancy. Is it the bustle of the city driving her mad, or is there something seedier going on; something more broadly linked to things of a more unworldly nature unfolding within this very worldly zone. The film begins with the Woodhouse's searching out a new abode within which to live, with the aim to turn their family of two into a family of three. The Woodhouse's are made up of the titular Rosemary, played by Mia Farrow, and her husband Guy (Cassavetes); people with the ability to, we feel, afford the high-life given the exquisite nature of the apartment they are shown around: a porter in the elevator complimenting the Beethoven music playing somewhere within the complex once inside the apartment proper and the generally rich nature of the interior furnishing. But we are all informed of some prior nastiness that once happened in the apartment and a wardrobe seemingly blocking something to great convenience offers slight distrust.
There is a moment, eventually doubling up for the catalyst of what later transpires, in which Rosemary will admit to those listening of a terrifying dream she had; a dream in which she was situated on a dock wearing next to nothing as a ship about to set off on a doomed cruise sat perched awaiting boarding just ahead of her. The notion of feeling bare or vulnerable whilst situated at a locale upon which the beginnings of what are usually long, arduous journeys appearing prominent; the ship itself appearing metaphorically as the literal apartment purchase, those of whom are allowed on linked directly to class and those within a class able to afford to move into such spaces – the underlying factor being that what lies ahead on this cruise or journey is mandatory trouble and strife, the precise things which plague Rosemary's life once she has gotten herself into this true-to-life nightmare.
Ploanski allows for things to brood before hitting us with any counter punches he mostly certainly has up his sleeve; a young girl named Terry bonds well with Rosemary, but this is not a character study between two girls and the quaint friendship they strike up; the Castevet family neighbours named Roman (Blackmer) and Minnie (Gordon) come to infiltrate the lives of Rosemary and Guy, much to Rosemary's disdain; but this isn't necessarily a character drama about numerous people whom live and integrate with one another in a jolly fashion on grounded terms within a mere New York apartment block. The film allows for raw human behaviour, Guy's attitudes and reactions to the Castevet's presence or demands shifting naturally enough without bringing to awares any seedier side to the agreements he's actually striking up with them, the likes of which subsequent viewings might reveal more clearly, as intense or obvious underhanded tactics. By the time Rosemary's titular baby has been conceived and is known to be on the way, natural human behaviour is captured as somewhat unnatural, or at least made so that the audience might be drawn towards assuming it to be unnatural – cravings for specific foods; immense weight loss; pains and paranoia each straddling a fine line between what might be uneasily typical or just disturbingly atypical behaviour going on to contribute to a nastier cause.
Polanksi keeps the tension, terror and paranoia wrenched up to some near-unbearable levels; the fact that certain people around Rosemary, whom she's known for varying degrees of time and most of whom come into contact with the Castevet's, appear to come to sticky ends is a predominant item; the working out of various clues and the shifting of different notions into place occupying most of the film's somewhat agonising crucible. The end result is a superior thriller revolving around the potentially distressing, but with the underlying source of terror being the fear of one's accuracy in seeing through such matters and where that would then place them; culminating in a distinguished piece.