Movie Review: Rosemary's Baby [1968]

Rosemary's Baby is one of the first films of Roman Polanski, technically directing and writing debut in world cinema. But still this is a decent, smart and quite interesting movie. 

Film follows a young couple, Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and Guy  (John Cassavetes) Woodhouses, who movie to a new apartment in New York City and find themselves surrounded by strange neighbors and mystic occurrences.  Guy is a rising actor, who tries to get his place in a big city and spends most of his time outside the house. Rosemary, on the contrary, is a loving wife without job, trying to adopt with husbands aspirations. When Mr. Woodhouse get new role, their life totally gets better and they decide to have a child.

Their life is sometimes interrupted by an old couple of Cassavetes living just behind walls. They always seem very welcoming to young couple and sometimes even overtry to help them. Cassavetes really seem to be an average husband and wife in their late sixties. Having no child, they try to "love" other people. But Rosemary is starting to dislike them, soon after their ward commits suicide unexpectedly and she's unable to get support of Guy to avoid contacting suspicious neighbors. Since getting pregnant Rosemary has strange dreams and hears strange noises and Guy becomes remote and distant. Then Rosemary falls pregnant and begins to suspect that her neighbours have special plans for her child.

Regardless the fact how tense and thrilling story is, this movie is not horror, since it never made me scared, even director did not try to make a scary movie. Instead, it's good thriller, making you wonder, if Rosemary is getting mad, or not? What if she is right? It's a smartly written screenplay, with some catchy dialogues, but most of them I found a lot average, because they did not help much to develop any character and plot of the movie. First half of film is kind of slow, and pardon me - boring. It concentrates on relationship between Rose and Guy, which does not help film very much. Death of ward, which is supposed to be connected with Rosemary's nightmares, happens at the beginning of film, but the rest story develops in the second part - I did not get it. Maybe this is a reason, why I could find a link.

Acting panel is the best part of Rosemary's Baby. I loved Mia Farrow as a thoughtful mother of unborn child. Her character changes during the movie very much. At first, she is a calm, sweet and harmless woman, who is trying to support husband doing his job. In the end, she turns into rebel mom, with signs of schizophrenia and paranoia. It's a beautiful and complex role for lead actress and Mia nailed it. Ruth Gordon has an Oscar winning role of witch neighbor Mrs Cassavete. During little screen time, she steals hearts of every viewer with natural, lovely and a bit funny acting. However, for me, Mia was better nod for Academy Awards than Ruth. John Cassavetes also is a good actor. His role as a new actor and husband is a safe place for any male lead, but since the film keeps your attention to Rosemary, he becomes hard to notice in the last parts of movie.

As for sounds, it worked well, but could be better. Rosemary' Baby is not a classic horror, or even thriller. It  only shows mental tensity of characters, which also influences on you. But I think, more creepy sounds would totally make this movie a better one. 

All in all, I found this movie boring and entertaining the same time, having some mixed feelings about it. If you try to watch it, try to survive during the first half - last part is far more enjoyable.