I was told about The Giver from a friend about the same time Divergent hit the big screen. He said he read the book back in middle school, “it was a quick read, and it was a really awesome. If you loved Divergent then you should give the book a try.” At that time I had never heard of the book myself, nor had I heard that this book was being made as we spoke into a major motion picture. I went to Amazon, like a good girl and I purchased the book. And there it sits in my Kindle, waiting to be read.
I was thrilled when I was able to score tickets to the movie for a screening last night, and was anxious to see The Giver. I love Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep can do no wrong in my book, and well Katie Holmes will always be Joey Potter from Dawson’s creek, throw in some good looking kids that are up and comers and well it sounds like a smashing success. You would think, right?
We got to the theater as we were told to, hours before the movie to assure we would get in. We got in all right and so did the handful of people that showed up as well. The theater was huge and we had plenty of room to spread out and get comfy, not as exactly expected. But a movie could be a sleeper after all it was 18 years in the making, Jeff Bridges has been campaigning that long for the movie to get told.
The lights finally went down, and I was all ready for the movie. After all I was told if I like the dystopian books and movies like the Hunger Games and Divergent I was going to love this movie. For those that don’t know about the movie here is a little background before I continue.
The film, based on Lois Lowry’s book, tells the story of a perfect world. Everyone here is happy. When Jonas is 12 years old, he’s chosen to be the community’s Receiver of Memories. He enters into training with an old man called The Giver. From the Giver, Jonas learns about pain, sadness, war, and all the unhappy truths of the “real” world. He quickly realizes that his community is fake. Confronted with this reality, Jonas faces difficult choices about his own life and his future.
The movie begins well enough, with our introduction to the community and its functional “dwellings” where Jonas played by the 25-year-old Australian actor Brenton Thwaites lives with his dutiful but distant parents (Alexander Skarsgard and Katie Holmes) and younger sister, Lily (Emma Tremblay). Working on a modest budget, production designer Ed Verreaux and costume designer Diana Cilliers have given the film the spare, modular look of mid-century modernism — a feeling further enhanced by Noyce’s decision to shoot almost the entire first 30 minutes of the movie in low-contrast black-and-white, with color only gradually seeping into the frames as Jonas learns to “see beyond” (a variation on the technique employed by the 1998 “Pleasantville,” which itself may have been influenced by Lowry).
From there, The Giver goes on to show the developing bond between the Receiver (Bridges) and Jonas, who has been selected to inherit the great storehouse of memory and carry on the older man’s legacy. The Receiver is Bridges in full-on stoner Buddha mode — a routine the actor has done so many times now (most recently in “Tron: Legacy”) that it should have descended into self-parody. And yet, Bridges is the most affecting thing in the movie — a man physically and spiritually exhausted by having to carry the emotional weight of the world on his shoulders. As Jonas takes on ever more of the Receiver’s wisdom and experience, he’s meant to be shaken and stirred, pushed to the very brink of psychological endurance, but Thwaites plays it all with the same unwavering expression of sleepy, dumbstruck awe, more Harry Styles than Harry Potter.
Moving on to, Israeli newcomer Odeya Rush flashes an entrancing come-hither stare, but otherwise sets off few sparks as the unrequited object of Jonas’ proscribed affections.
The movie downright falls flat. There are scenes in the beginning that instantly bring my mind back to direct scenes of Divergent down to the homes and the way the communities are grouped and Meryl Streep even calls back to Jeanine ( Kate Winslet) of Divergent and soon to be Insurgent. Some of the language even rang true to me, “When people have the power to choose. They choose wrong.”I know that The Giver the book came out before Divergent, but one can’t help but wonder if they took any pieces of recent hits and try to reformat them and make them their own. The best way to describe this movie is Divergent meets Pleasantville.
Reviewed at AMC 24, Aventura, FL; Aug. 11, 2014. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 97 MIN.
