Rosemary's Baby
By: Ira Levin / Narrated By: Mia Farrow
Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
More chortles than chills
I remember seeing the movie “Rosemary’s Baby” when I was oh, somewhere about the size of an ant. Yes, mine were the kind of parents who’d let us see ANYthing.
I was totally freaked out by it: The lighting! The music! The weird-patoot facial expressions! And holy cow, that ending! Why, it was so atmospherically horrific that I could even stand Mia Farrow’s mousy-ish voice and mannerisms.
Unfortunately, the book doesn’t have all of that: The lighting, the music, the weird-patoot facial expressions. Well, it does have an odd sort of music interspersed here and there, but not in the background, and DEFinitely not where there are supposed to be creepy goings-on. But it does indeed have Mia Farrow (And by the way? Especially at the beginning of the audiobook, everything sounds tinny, like there’s an echo, and her pacing and breathing are so stilted you can almost see her sitting there, book in hand, licking her finger as she turns the page).
Actually, Mia does okay. I mean, now I get that Rosemary was supPOSed to be all mousy like that, was supPOSed to have such a girly and kittenish voice and mannerisms. Cuz Rosemary, seriously, comes off as a mewling idiot.
So, while I was impressed that she could actually do voices for other characters in a… well, an okay sort of manner, the mewling and indecision of Rosemary as narrated (And by extension, as performed onscreen?) rather had me chuckling. I dunno, I think the book didn’t age well, or it totally required Roman Polanski. Good for Roman!
Do you not know the circumstances? Rosemary is a… mewling idiot… ahem… young woman married to the struggling actor, Guy. They’ve recently moved into an apartment in a building that has had all sorts of misfortunes in its past, have been warned against moving there, and sure enough, bad and weird things happen (A girl committing suicide… or getting pushed? Weeeeird neighbors? Weeeeird music and party sounds?). But after some weeeeird things, Rosemary and Guy keep getting along, and lo and behold, Guy starts picking up some fairly decent acting jobs.
Then Rosemary gets pregnant, Then hijinks ensue. Then their baby dies. Then Rosemary hears a baby’s cries. Then then then.
Just read the book. NO! I mean: Just watch the movie!
Because without Polanski, the characters with Ms. Farrow’s tremulous pitch carrying them are fairly chucklesome indeed. I got more laughs from the audiobook, from the characters’ actions and reactions than I got chills. And I don’t think I was supposed to. Everything seems quite melodramatic.
And Oh. My. Heavens! The ending had me laughing out loud because Rosemary/Mia Farrow discovers her… mewling… innate sense of nurturing and quite DOTES on Satan. Truly a guffaw-inducing moment.
This is all unfortunate because my sister and I put a lot of thought into what all audiobooks we could get done in time for Halloween, and Rosemary’s Baby was a total Must-Do. Uhm, well, uhm, no.
And just one more By The Way: The scene where she’s impregnated is just downright repugnant. Maybe I’m just twitchy cuz women are more vocal about mistreatment nowadays, but I truly wanted to stop the audiobook right then and there. I woulda slugged Guy after what he did and later said and even later dismissed.
Or I woulda wanted to, but Ms. Farrow’s vocal characterization of him at the time woulda made it seemed like I was strangling a kitten.
Ah, well. So many good audiobooks out there; for Halloween, check out the Halloween Page that we’ve been growing since last year. Cuz this my friend?
If Satan was birthed from a kitten…
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