Fear and loathing . . .

Rating: Null/10 (14 December 2014)

I have a feeling that if the academy had opened the category to six nominees, then my choice would have been nominated. By 1968, Mia Farrow was best known as Mrs. Frank Sinatra and by the time of the academy awards, she was better known as the former Mrs. Frank Sinatra. That wouldn't deter from the fact that she gave her single best performance in Roman Polanski's moody adaptation of Ira Levin's novel Rosemary's Baby.
Farrow plays Rosemary Woodhouse a semi-newlywed looking for an apartment with her actor husband Guy (John Cassavetes) find the perfect place in Manhattan's Bram Building, a large odd, elder-tenement that is strange even before we realize why. There is a closet that seems blocked off for no reason, all of the other tenants seem to be in their 70s and on their first night, there is odd chanting coming from the apartment next door. The oddities are there but they don't seem to shake Rosemary even as she begins having bizarre dreams about ritualistic sex.
Her neighbors are not exactly threatening – they are older grandparent-types who always come by with caring smiles, warm tea and desserts. She and Guy have their closest relationship with Roman and Millie Casavets (Sydney Berman and Ruth Gordon), a childless old couple who treat Rosemary like the daughter they never had. It all seems normal. Rosemary and Guy have the usual husband and wife conflicts, but they remain a loving couple and soon after they settle into the tenement, they decide to have a baby.
This is where things turn bizarre. On the night of the conception Rosemary has a dessert given to her by Mrs. Casavets, becomes dizzy and passes out. She enters into a bizarre dream in which she is raped by a demon while her neighbors stand around nude watching the act (for some reason, one of the onlookers resembles Jackie Kennedy from that day in November). When she awakens, she finds scratches on her body and Guy apologizes that he was such an animal in bed. Things surface that seem to conform to her dream, Mrs. Casavets keeps bringing tea and desserts and new people keep showing up. There is an odd sense that the people around her seem off-kilter, somehow askew; they don't look as we expect from our fellow human beings; there is a look in their eyes that seems strange. She visits an elder doctor who seems to take her; suspicions and turns them on her, he is more interested in prescribing medicine than caring for his patient.
All of this is played, more or less, through Rosemary's eyes. We never leave her side and, for most of the film, we don't understand what goes on when she's not around. The best note that Farrow brings to the performance is a naive sensibility. There's a wide-eyed kid still lurking in her, the sensibilities of her teenage years haven't completely left her, even though she is now in her early twenties. If she had allowed Rosemary to be stronger, more confident, then the performance wouldn't work. We have to believe that she is naive enough to think that she is caught under someone's spell and that she is susceptible to suggestion; if she contained a strong mind that could piece together the puzzle, than we would believe that she could work her way out of this situation.
The final image of the film in one of the most striking as she looks into her baby's bassinet. She realizes that every suspicion was correct, that everyone around her had a hand in the deception and the conception, we realize that Rosemary has now fallen under the spell and as the image quietly fades out and into the Paramount logo, we realize that this story has no happy ending.