Watched: October 6 2025

Director: Roman Polanski

Starring: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans, Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly, Emmaline Henry

Year: 1968

Runtime: 2h 17min

Rosemary Woodhouse (Farrow) and Guy (Cassavetes), her aspiring actor-husband, move into a beautiful apartment in an old, infamous apartment building, “The Bramford.” They then proceed to completely ruin the vibe by painting everything white.

From the start, the omens are ominous. There are cryptic writings left by the previous tenant (an old lady who died, though not on the premises), closets blocked by furniture, the brutal death (suicide..?) of another tenant, and chanting coming through from the neighbours’ place. Add to that the Bramford’s reputation for witchcraft, baby-eating, creepy sisters and scary men, and we can sort of understand why Rosemary decided to brighten the place up. But we can never forgive.

Not long after moving in, Rosemary is invaded by dreams or visions of nuns in her sleep, and by nosy neighbour Minnie Castevet (Gordon) in her waking hours, both equally distressing. Being a polite young woman, she accepts Minnie’s first invitation to dinner, and to all of their surprise, Guy takes a fancy to Roman Castevet (Blackmer). Soon, the neighbours are entangled in their lives, and Rosemary has lost any sense of peace, quiet and privacy she may have otherwise enjoyed in her huge apartment.

On paper, the Woodhouses are on an upward spiral – Guy’s luck as an actor takes an unexpected turn as a rival suddenly goes blind which gives him a leading role in a play, and Rosemary becomes pregnant after a creepy night of coersion, marital rape and even more disturbing visions than the other disturbing visions she’s been having since moving in. What’s the problem? They wanted a child, right?

The claustrophobic atmosphere keeps building throughout the pregnancy. Guy and his new besties, the Castevets and their weird friends, control what she eats, which doctor she sees, where she goes and pretty much everything in Rosemary’s life. In addition, Guy gaslights, guilts and manipulates his wife to comply with pretty much everything they put her through. She does push back though, and occasionally succeeds. A vindicating scene is her party for her old friends, including her supportive girl squad who puts Guy in his place for an evening, but her victories are small and short-lived. She is also way too trusting of her husband and shares all her fears and suspicions about the neighbours with him. As if it isn’t perfectly clear that he is in league with them!

Rosemary’s Baby is one of those movies that we have seen several times, and it just gets more sinister and frustrating every time. Rosemary is a precariously balanced character who is potentially hard to like, but Farrow makes her very charming and likable, and manage to balance her out: had she been more assertive, she might have gotten away from the situation. However, had she been less assertive, we would have lost some sympathy for her. She has some defiance in her – she tries several times to rescue herself, she just never takes it far enough. In her defence, we guess it takes a while to get used to the idea that your husband is in league with evil baby-killing witches and that everyone around you is part of a conspiracy to steal your child.

It’s a great movie with so many amazing details that we can’t possibly list them all. The fashion, the slow escalation, Mrs Castevet’s table manners, the use of scrabble pieces, and Rosemary’s gradual evolution from child to adult woman are all great. Turns out the men in this (with the notable exception of our man Hutch) are even worse than we remembered from previous viewings – especially Guy and the two doctors. Take out the entire antichrist subplot, and we’d still have an infuriating movie about the lack of female autonomy, as well as domestic abuse being perpetuated by male professionals who refuse to take women seriously. The literal devil is more of an afterthought to this very real threat. (Not that the devil isn’t a real threat… Please don’t come for us, Satan! We assure you we have a healthy fear and respect for you and your minions.)

What we learned: Never be a Catholic, no matter how lapsed. It’s always the Catholics who are possessed or tricked into giving birth to devils. Also, when in trouble, call the girl squad! And don’t trust your ambitious husband who thought it was perfectly acceptable to rape you (or, as it turns out, have you raped) in order to further his career. And who also thinks going through a hard pregnancy and then giving birth at home only to be told the baby died is the same as “no one gets hurt.” Damn, there are a lot of lessons to be learned from this movie.

MVP: Girl Squad! Or, they could have been, had she contacted them earlier… Hutch, then. RIP.

Next time: Spirits of the Dead (1968)