I knew the basic storyline of THE GIVER even though I’d never read Lois Lowry’s best selling utopian sci-fi novel which hit bookshelves in 1994…
Added to which a name cast of Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Katie Holmes, Alexander Skarsgard and Taylor Swift (all in supporting roles) had me pretty stoked to enter this seemingly ideal, if colorless world of conformity and contentment.
In this FUTURE world the human race knows no war. Violence and conflict are unheard of. And babies are raised with appropriate families and eventually placed into occupations which best fit the controlled environment.
Setting the conformity mood and texture, director Phillip Noyce (Patriot Games & Salt) front loaded the film in black and white—almost shades of gray.
Enter high-spirited Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) who lives with his dutiful parental units Katie Holmes and Alexander Skarsgard in their modular home and apparently has been passed by the strict selection process.
Translation:
Jonas is selected by chief elder Meryl Streep to become a receiver of the memory of how things used to be.
To receive and interpret events like wars, conflicts—in other words, the bad old days.
Charged with teaching these dark and complex secrets is eccentric Giver Jeff Bridges, who injects the experiences of pain, war misery and fright.
Odeya Rush
Yet Bridges also introduces new receiver Jordan to color, music, warmth—and love courtesy of hottie Odeya Rush.
But Jordan is only to learn, not to partake. The question being, will he obey?
It’s all told in a fast entrancing hour and a half of author George Orwell-style conformity.
And about the great Meryl Streep? She’s basically reduced here to a somewhat minor role. She appears periodically throughout the film in both holographic form as well as in the flesh.
But Streep rules with the motto: “When people have the freedom to choose, they choose wrong every time.”
A good enough effort, but not compelling enough to really grab me.
THE GIVER—manipulating human memory to a score of C+.
(Reviewed at AMC 30, Olathe)
