THE GIVER
DIRECTOR: Phillip Noyce
CAST: Meryl Streep, Jeff Bridges, Brenton Thwaites, Alexander Skarsgard
CLASSIFICATION: 10PG V
RUNNING TIME: 97 minutes
RATING: **
AN AGREEABLE riff on George Orwell – through Logan’s Run – topped with the kind of magic-transformative baloney that passes for an ending in too many otherwise-fine Hollywood adventures, Noyce’s The Giver greets a man-made Utopia with the eternal question: “If you can’t feel, what’s the point?”
Lois Lowry’s 1993 Newbery Medal-winning source novel has been substantially altered here, mostly in ways that nudge it towards other “chosen-one” teenage fantasies set in restrictive futuristic worlds.
The changes, which include making the book’s 12-year-old hero old enough to make tween viewers swoon (he’s played by Aussie Thwaites, 25), surely enhance marketability, even if they sand edges off a tale that has won many hearts over the years.
The presence of Bridges and Streep in supporting roles will help draw some attention from grown-ups who don’t know the book, but while the film may see enough success to justify follow-ups (Lowry has written three sequels), this franchise won’t come close to competing with The Hunger Games.
Thwaites plays Jonas, who lives in a black-and-white world. Literally. Colour, unpredictable weather and interpersonal conflict have been carefully excised from the society he was born into – an unnamed city-state, set on a mesa ringed by clouds, where identical dwellings house family units whose members aspire to perfect Sameness. Daily injections of passion-inhibiting drugs help in that quest, as does an ignorance of history. Memories of mankind’s unruly past have been erased, known only to a single Receiver of Memory (played by Bridges).
On their ritualised graduation from childhood, the Chief Elder (Streep) doles out appointed roles to Jonas and his peers.
Good buddy Asher (Cameron Monaghan) will pilot one of the many flying drones that watch over citizens and politely inform them when they’re breaking a rule. Sweet Fiona (Odeya Rush) will work in the Nurturing Centre, caring for newborns until they are sent off to be raised by host families.
Jonas, who realises he sees things others can’t, will inherit the Receiver’s role, studying with his predecessor until he’s ready to advise the Elders.
The Receiver’s home office lives up to the revelations that will transpire there. An atrium-like library in a small stone bunker, it’s built on “The Edge”. It looks out on the cloud bank separating this world from Elsewhere, the place (ahem) that old folks go when they have reached the end of their careers.
Here, Bridges’ Receiver becomes the eponymous Giver, sitting with his pupil and allowing the young man to experience all the sensations and knowledge denied other citizens. This process is the film’s highlight – Thwaites is awestruck by his first telepathic encounters with colour, excitement and love. (In a much-hyped, flashback-ish cameo, Taylor Swift helps introduce Jonas to music.)
If he doesn’t see enough to grasp the depths of human experience the Elders have sacrificed for the sake of order, Jonas learns of more direct cruelties. When he realises that a physically imperfect baby is to be “released” from the burden of existence, he decides he must save this child from death.
While Noyce builds suspense, the screenplay lets him down.
The easy out at the end should go over badly with readers attached to the novel’s more ambiguous end – although audiences, by now, are so used to this nonsense. – Hollywood Reporter
If you liked Divergent or Mortal Instruments: CIty of Bones you will like this.