This trailer offers a very exciting hint at a beefed up role for Streep’s character, the Chief Elder. The Chief Elder essentially has a glorified cameo in the excellent book (her speech that opens the trailer is more or less the gist of the Chief Elder’s role in Lowry’s novel), but the trailer suggests that she is now a steely villain. How exciting! That’s one nice thing about a book that’s a quick 170-odd pages and essentially filmable as written: there’s just so much room for the adaptation to be creative. The black and white, on the other hand, is an essential part of the film’s dystopian premise as the people live in blissful ignorance of the full spectrum of the world.
The Giver also
stars Jeff Bridges and Maleficent’s Brenton Thwaites, but, as
always, you can expect this blog to hail it as The Meryl Show. (There’s no giver
quite like Streep!)
The Giver opens in Canada August 15 from eOne Films.
