'The Giver' - Review

Based on the novel by Lois Lowry, The Giver is set in what appears to be a perfect world. But while suffering and war have been banished, so too have choice, diversity and colour. While his friends are assigned to ordinary jobs once coming of age, Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) is selected to learn from an elderly man (Jeff Bridges) about the reality of pain and pleasure that once existed within the real world.

From the outset, the story feels openly derivative of many other texts aimed at teenagers: you have the communities/districts from The Hunger Games, the sorting ceremony from Harry Potter and the edge-of-insanity faction leader from Divergent. While the entire premise is intrinsically interesting, the initial intrigue is unfortunately strangled by the references and ideas that worked much better – or worse – in other films.

Thwaites (who I rather enjoyed in Oculus) feels very out of place at the start but slowly eases into an easily replicable role, while Jeff Bridges appears to have become caught in some form of suspended animation since working on Tron: Legacy and continues that enjoyably grumbly performance, albeit bereft of L.E.D. trench coat. Meryl Streep as the matriarch adds a certain degree of watchable madness but has clearly been taking staring lessons from Kate Winslet in Divergent.

Unfortunately, Streep’s character is where the enjoyable female roles end. Katy Holmes as Jonas’ mother is utterly wasted, Taylor Swift is brought in for about two minutes during a flashback before vanishing into thin air, while the supposed love interest (We Are What We Are’s Odeya Rush) is criminally under-developed. Whatever problems I may have had with Divergent, at least it had some decent female roles whereas here, they are marginalised to the point where you could remove half of them and no-one would notice.

Due to the nature of the world in which the film takes place, the colour palette begins in drab black and white, but as the real world is revealed to Jonas, colour begins to seep into the frame accompanied by great rainbow bursts which carry a certain visual charm. Annoyingly, these scenes are not only unimaginatively shot, but the character reactions to what should be the extraordinary undiscovered beauty of the real world are frustratingly muted and bland. The tone of the movie is all over the place, an irksomely saccharine Christmas scene offset horrifically by a sequence in which Jonas experiences what is essentially a ‘Nam flashback.

Carried almost entirely by an interesting premise and watchable leads, The Giver pays lip service to an array of philosophical problems but has neither the strength nor running time enough to fully play out the central idea to maximum potential; a young adult adaptation that would have much more room to grow if it could only refrain from ripping off its predecessors. It’s intriguing, but ultimately forgettable.

2.5 stars