Cast: Brandon Thwaites is all over my year so far, having seen him in the excellent Oculus, the disappointing Maleficent, and now the lifeless Giver (but I'll get to that). He works as the lead even though I'm told the character should be much younger. Odeya Rush and Cameron Monaghan (good to see him outside of Shameless, where he's fantastic) create his pretty generic clique. Alexander Skarsgard and Katie Holmes as the parents are, by design, stoic and unnuanced. His sister, Emma Tremblay, only being nine, gets to play it a lot more loose. Jeff Bridges is the least regimented person in the movie yet it's certainly the most rigid I've ever seen him while playing some form of the Dude. Oh, and Taylor Swift is barely in it. Not sure if that's a selling point or not. She's fine when she does show up. In general, it's hard to critique the performances because they are all asked to play characters who are essentially robotic and barely believable. For god's sake, it makes Meryl Streep look wooden!
[Note: Before I get to the plot, I want to make two things clear: 1) I haven't read the book, so I am only speaking for the movie. 2) Despite the original story preceding all these of YA adaptations, I'm looking at the cinematic timeline, as the umpteenth movie like this.
Plot: Jonas lives in a post-war society that's a supposed utopia. Everything is very controlled and structured. People feel little or no emotions. Jonas gets assigned the job of becoming the holder of memories because apparently no one else has memories (or at least long term ones, or maybe he's just a historian. I'm not sure). It sounds like this is a job he was destined for because he starts seeing colors even before getting the job. Oh, I forgot to mention, the world is black and white. Somehow, color has been removed. As you can imagine, as Jonas gets more memories from The Giver of memories (Bridges), as you'd expect, it sets into motion a series of events that creates a new world order and frees people from the shackles of their blah blah blah.
Elephant in the Room: You don't sound very impressed. I'm getting tired of all these YA dystopias. I get the metaphor already! Individuality is good and can't be controlled forever. I'd like to see a world that actually looks like it could exist though. Ignoring everything about the memory barrier that somehow takes away the color from their eyes (both literally and figuratively), there's no way to believe that more people simply don't take their "medication" at the beginning of the day or that someone like Meryl Streep's character could function in a capacity to enforce the rules without being above them. That this Giver/Receiver relationship even exists is absurd. What does that even mean "keeper of memories"? How far does this extend? People know each others' names. That's memory. So is this just willful ignorance? Say what you will about the Hunger Games, but I understand how that world can develop and exist. I'd be more interested to see the story of how our world* becomes the world of The Giver, because I can't fathom a single plausible explanation.
*I assume it's our world based on the excessive stock footage shots of real places and things used in the movie.
To Sum Things Up:
Look, this movie has been out for three weeks and it isn't even doing that well in the box office. The only reason I saw it is because the selection is that weak right now and I was too lazy to drive over the a Forest Gump IMAX screening. This is not a very good movie. I appreciate the ambition and it was a solid effort to adapt into a movie a book that doesn't appear to translate well from one medium to the other. I wish I could narrow it down to an actor being a drag or the director being unfocused. Sadly, it's a lifeless final product that doesn't distinguish itself from any of the number of similar book/movie adaptations. It doesn't even have a Jeff Bridges/Taylor Swift duet. What the hell, Weinstein Co?
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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