(USA, 90 min.)
Dir. Phillip Noyce, Writ. Michael Mitnick and Robert B.
Weide
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Brenton Thwaites,
Alexander Skarsgard, Katie Holmes, Odeya Rush, Cameron Monaghan, Taylor Swift.
 |
| Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges star in The Giver. Photo courtesy of The Weinstein Company. |
Dystopian flicks are all the rage for the teen crowd
nowadays. This business of art sees something viable in the franchises of
futuristic young adult novels that offer readily cinematic adventures, so the
rationale behind the recent surge of sameness becomes apparent no sooner than
one can utter the word “Katniss.” Katniss has a predecessor, though, and his
name is Jonas. Crowds of complacent cogs
of YA dystopia chant his name in Lois Lowry’s 1994 Newberry Medal winning novel
The Giver and the success of Lowry’s
novel exceeds all of the successors that follow in its wake—if not commercially
then at least critically. It’s therefore only fitting for the novel that
started the trend to receive its own big screen adaptation.
The Giver might
feel a bit late to the party, especially when a trailer for Mockingjay: Part 1 precedes it, but this
adaptation is nevertheless bound to please fans of Lowry’s book and non-readers
alike. The Giver, the novel, passes
on the lessons of its success to receivers like The Hunger Games, yet The
Giver, the film, takes a cue from the formidable success of other YA
adaptations to make a smart, resonant film that’s both accessible and
entertaining.
This film by Phillip Noyce (Salt) also has both the benefit (and
disadvantage) of adapting a book far superior to most entries in the YA
page-to-screen field, since Lowry crafts sentences far more logical and nuanced
than most of the poorly-written teen dystopian fiction. (Cough, cough, Divergent.) The Giver also benefits from the sparseness and openness of Lowry’s
170-page book, for virtually everything magical about the book makes its way to
the screen. There’s no need to whittle away at The Giver and condense it for an adaption. This brisk film packs everything
in and in a running time almost an hour shorter than that of its exposition-heavy
peers. The Giver instead gets to open
up Lowry’s book and expand upon it. The result is a film that remains true to
the novel yet offers an original adventure in its own right.
Everything’s there from Lowry’s vision, including the
greyscale palette with which the characters of The Community see the world. The
futuristic setting envisions a world of sameness where everything exists in a
convenient (and controllable) binary of blacks and whites. Leave it to a young
rebel, in this case Jonas (Maleficent’s
Brenton Thwaites) to see through the artifice of his comfortable society. Jonas
actually has the power to “see beyond” he learns as The Chief Elder (a
terrifically cold Meryl Streep, rocking the Jane Campion wig) assigns him the role as Receiving of Memory
during the annual ceremony in which teens graduate into the ranks selected for
them by the community. “Thank you for your childhood,” the Chief Elder nods as
Streep commands the show with playful sinisterness.
Jonas grows up and sees the blissful ignorance of his
existence as he begins his training with the elder Receiver of Memory, now
dubbed The Giver, who passes on the true history of the world of which the rest
of the community is unaware. Jeff Bridges plays The Giver and he handily
commands the film with a performance that carries The Giver’s weight of knowing
both the terrible consequences of the past and the beautiful subjectivities
that make life so unpredictable. Hunched over and tired, yet jovial with a voice
like Santa Claus, The Giver helps Jonas see the full spectrum of the world. He
also prompts Jonas to learn from the burden that inevitably befalls the
Receiver of Memory—it’s a lot to carry the entire catalogue of history alone—and
expose the artifice of society to the rest of The Community.
The relationship between Jonas and The Giver comprises the
bulk of Lowry’s novel with the elder passing on his knowledge of, say, the
beauty of the colour yellow or the pain of a broken arm. It’s all highly
readable dialogue that’s perfect for kids to read and appreciate, but the
conversations of The Giver, while
essentially filmable as written, need something more to make the story appropriately
cinematic. Enter The Chief Elder in a role that’s much expanded from the book—Streep’s
holographic speech at the graduation ceremony comprises the whole of her
character’s role in the book—and Jonas and The Giver have a worthy foil against
whom they must fight to unleash the truth. (The novel essentially features
Jonas and The Giver hatch a plan and fall through with it.) Lowry’s story
therefore gets ample action, suspense, and romance to flesh out Jonas’s heroic
task.
The Giver succeeds
mostly because of the weight that Streep and especially Bridges bring to it.
Noyce envisions a sleekly chilly image of The Community, but lesson of The Giver—the championing of diversity
in the face of sameness—feels a bit familiar post Katniss Everdeen. Thwaites’s
wide-eyed performance is also ironically one-note, although he certainly has
the screen presence to evolve as an actor, so the Giver struggles to engage the viewer in Jonas’s quest since he
lacks the fallibility to other YA-heroes like Katniss or Tris. Even the film’s
play on the coldness of black-and-white imagery versus the warmth of a full
palette even feels like a copycat of Pleasantville
even if the source material technically beat all the aforementioned films to
the punch. Luckily, though, much of the original material still lets Lowry’s
work resonate as The Giver makes
itself fresh.
Everything Noyce and screenwriters Michael Mitnick and
Robert B. Weide add to The Giver only
complements what is already present in the text. The love story between Jonas
and Fiona (Odeya Rush) becomes a greater subplot that makes Jonas’s final run
more urgent and compelling. The beefed-up part for Streep likewise adds some
action and suspense as The Chief Elder watches the progress of Jonas’s studies
with suspicion, whereas his budding skepticism goes undetected in the book. Streep is a terrific foe, cold and detached, and the perceptible absence of humanity makes The Chief Elder one of the better villains
in YA film fare. (Although I might be bias on this point...)
Embellishing the plot only improves The Giver, too, when stars as strong as Streep and Bridges share the screen. The expansion of the novel really ties everything together as The Giver and The Chief Elder enjoy an original scene in which they debate the foundations of the Community while The Giver crosscuts Jonas’s trek into Elsewhere as a do-or-die moment for The Community to learn the true difference between right and wrong. The added scene even gives greater subtext to the characters, as Streep and Bridges give intriguing readings of the characters that suggests the coldness between the two Elders embodies the absence of love the cripples the community. There’s far more to the story, especially when actors this good further the material.
Thank you for your childhood, The Giver, and thank you for letting the elders carry honour your memory so well.
Embellishing the plot only improves The Giver, too, when stars as strong as Streep and Bridges share the screen. The expansion of the novel really ties everything together as The Giver and The Chief Elder enjoy an original scene in which they debate the foundations of the Community while The Giver crosscuts Jonas’s trek into Elsewhere as a do-or-die moment for The Community to learn the true difference between right and wrong. The added scene even gives greater subtext to the characters, as Streep and Bridges give intriguing readings of the characters that suggests the coldness between the two Elders embodies the absence of love the cripples the community. There’s far more to the story, especially when actors this good further the material.
Thank you for your childhood, The Giver, and thank you for letting the elders carry honour your memory so well.
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
The Giver is currently playing in wide release.
