The Giver

Hope you all are enjoying this wondrous Casual Friday. Continuing the flow of content direct to you with a new review for The Giver. The new Sci-Fi Drama starring Brenton Thwaites, Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep.

I’ve been waiting for this book to get the big screen treatment since I read it in middle school. I’ve always thought that it had a lot of potential to make a decent cinematic experience while bringing a lot of interesting topics to discuss at the dinner table (or where ever you hold your colloquies). The questions of “perfection”, emotion, and freedom of choice are explored in this movie and they are introduced well.

The visuals of the movie fit the build of what I imagined the story to look. The use of tint and gray scale changing as the movie progressed was an interesting way to see the movie through the eyes of Jonas (Thwaites) as he gains knowledge through memory and emotion.

The acting was carried out well in my opinion. Remember in the book that there were clear rules defining clarity of speech. Emotional weighted words like Love, Terrified, etc. are evaluated as antiquated and are no longer used. The dialogue comes off a little flat as a result, but understand that that’s the point being made. void of emotion or choice, this is the world we would live in.

However, excusing the choice of dialogue, there are still a lot of plot holes that will leave you as an audience member wondering “what happened?” in an effort to avoid spoilers, I won’t dive into too much detail here, but the questions that the storyline leaves open are integral to the enjoyment of the film. This is where adaptation can go wrong. What works in a book may not always translate well into film. This is why things need to be adapted for film and sometimes things have to be removed or added.

Brenton Thwaites is definitely a talent though. The characters that were allowed to show emotion at points were given an opportunity to shine brighter than the rest of the cast, but Thwaites being the focus of the film, shined in his portrayal of Jonas showing his development throughout the movie. I’m looking forward to seeing what this does in his career.

Overall, the movie was interesting in the fact that it begs the question of choice and emotion and it’s importance in our lives. It definitely is a conversation starter…. That’s only if you want to have the conversation. I am all for this movie and looking past some of the problems I enjoyed spending the money to go see it. The choice is always yours folks, but I’d say you should definitely see this movie at least once.