“The Giver” is based off of Lois Lowry’s famous children’s book. The basic concept is the same: in the future, everything abstract or emotional has been deleted from the world. Now, euthanization of the weak is regular practice, everything is uniform and logical, and family units are not actually comprised of families, but rather, ideal matches. Humans can’t see colours, and all of the memories of before this perfect world are possessed by one person: The Giver. Jonas is slated to become The Giver’s successor, but when he experiences the memories, he realizes that this “perfect” world is missing everything wonderful.
From both an adaptation and stand-alone movie point of view, The Giver was mediocre. In the book, our protagonist and his friends are twelve years old. In the movie, however, they are sixteen. Making this change makes sense in a few ways: young adults are much more likely to rebel against the government and question their world than a trio of children. Giving the youth jobs at sixteen instead of twelve also makes much more sense. However, it seems more like they made this change solely so that they could add some unnecessary romance. Yes, Jonas figures out what love is while experiencing the memories, but this doesn’t mean a poorly developed, rushed romance with his best friend is essential.
The best parts of this film were the “memories” themselves. Memories are scenes from history, both the wonderful and the traumatic, that only The Giver can remember. He uses these memories to give advice to the government, so that they can avoid doing anything that would cause history to repeat itself. The cinematography and soundtrack in these scenes is stunning, reminding us just how beautiful and terrible the world is. We spent pretty much the entire movie looking forward to these scenes and being disappointed when they ended. They were stunning. The way the film gradually switches from black and white to full colour throughout (just like how Jonas is beginning to see more and more colours) is another awesome aspect.
Everything else about this movie was okay; the cast, the effects, the plot in general. The book is definitely unique, especially considering when it was published, but all of the confusing and unexplained parts made their ways into the movie. Some of these are remedied by the age change. However, the ending, which has never made sense to anyone, remained the same. After trekking through desert and mountains for days, Jonas is about to freeze to death when he comes across a sled. Then he sleds down a mountain to a house. We are left with more questions than we had at the beginning. Does this black and white, dystopian society exist at the same time as today’s society? Is Jonas dead, and this is heaven? What the hell is going on?
The Giver was a mediocre film with a couple of high points, but a strange and unnecessarily confusing ending. Because of the beautiful, somewhat redeeming “memory” montages, we’re giving this film 3.2 schlond poofas out of five.
patchwork shelves 