Show me a movie based on a young adult novel that captures the voice in a simple, mature way, and I’ll show you a surprised critic. Probably a panel of them. But that doesn’t always mean it’s a bad film, which is something worth remembering that, going into a film like “The Giver.”
Based off the famous 1993 novel by Lois Lowry, it follows Jonas (Brenton Thwaites, Maleficent, Oculus) through the utopian future he lives in. There’s no war, there’s no strife, there’s no pain. In its place is sameness, and a society run by elders (headed by Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada, Doubt) that — nicely — governs the lives of its citizens so thoroughly it observes them and then assigns them a job when they come of age.
And so Jonas passively accepts his new role to take over for the current Receiver of Memories (Jeff Bridges, The Big Lebowski, True Grit), a rare position that he’s warned will cause pain and isolate him from the rest of society.
Next to a veteran like Bridges — an actor whose permanent disposition is followed by his own drummer — Thwaites’ Jonas seems even more like a sheep getting the wool out of its eyes. As he’s exposed to his first taste of difference, color, and life beyond the society, there’s more and more of Bridges’ natural-Dude persona oozes out of him. His mannerisms are caught somewhere between the actor’s showmanship and the movie’s (intentional, I’m guessing) forced acting. Bridges walks the line the best, staying believable but not revolutionary to the societal norms, where others can’t quite break out of their two-dimensional boxes.
Like most teen films it won’t win any awards for acting. The script just isn’t there for the actors to grow from, but, importantly, the skeleton of the book is. Sure, there’s the compulsorily added romance and action sequence, and ultimately the insightful magic of the novel gets lost in translation. But that’s it. “The Giver” clearly has its heart in the right place (the novel) even if the messages can’t quite be broadcasted in the same way. Director Phillip Noyce has a solid grip on the simple, visual grace of the world; using color and flashbacks to effectively communicate to the audience whether they read the book or not. It’s a shame the Hollywood packaging can’t quite give it enough staying power the novel had.
Pulp Diction 