The Handmaid's Tale presents a chilling vision of 2014 where the United States has been replaced by the Republic of Gilead, a theocratic military dictatorship. Following a period of catastrophic environmental decline and a plummeting birth rate, the new regime reorganizes society into rigid hierarchical castes based on religious fundamentalism and reproductive utility.

The societal dynamics are defined by extreme gender-based segregation and state-sanctioned surveillance. In this timeline, Earth is suffering from the late-stage effects of chemical pollution and radiation, which has rendered the vast majority of the population sterile. Gilead's solution is the institutionalized enslavement of the few remaining fertile women, known as "Handmaids," who are assigned to the ruling elite. This divergence from our actual history is rooted in a successful domestic terror attack on the U.S. Capitol, allowing religious extremists to seize power and suspend the Constitution.

While the film’s 2014 did not see the rise of a clerical fascist state in America, its predictions regarding declining global fertility rates and environmental toxicity remain highly relevant. The film accurately anticipated the use of electronic banking freezes to strip citizens of autonomy and the implementation of biometric checkpoints. However, the film's aesthetic remains rooted in late-20th-century technology, failing to foresee the ubiquitous nature of the smartphone or the internet, even as it correctly identified the fragility of civil liberties in the face of national trauma.