I am just about through reading Ira Levin's masterfully gothic novel
Rosemary's Baby. I've seen the film numerous times, and the the greatest praise I can offer it is this: Polanski's adaptation is nearly a page-for-page transcription of its fictional source. In any event, I'm pretty certain that no one could have filled the role of Rosemary Woodhouse better than Mia Farrow. In fact, it's virtually impossible for me to divorce Rosemary Woodhouse from Mia Farrow, or, for that matter, Farrow from Rosemary Woodhouse. In role after role, Farrow--even when granted a certain neurotic complexity in Woody Allen's films--is pure milquetoast (I mean this is the best way possible, by the way). No one's whine grates as thoroughly as hers; she possesses a stereotypically feminine neediness that marks her as thoroughly Victorian. Can anyone argue the near-ideal reciprocity that exists between her body and her temperament (her characters' temperament)? Pallid, slight, boyish (whither Twiggy)? One of Hollywood's greatest casting debacles: Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan.
Could she make it today? Doubt it; today's misogyny is neanderthal not Victorian
