Utopian / dystopian societal films are extremely difficult to make well, evidently, because there are so few great examples out there. The Giver has a lot of merit going for it, especially in the first half, but then it, too, breaks its own consistency rules, lapses into melodrama and rushes to an anticlimactic / just-in-the-nick-of-time conclusion that made me shake my head in disbelief.
The Giver — an appropriate but feeble title — is apparently based on a well-known and possibly beloved young adult book (by Lois Lowry) of which I had never heard. Therefore, my reaction is solely based on the movie. Phillip Noyce directs, and I’ve enjoyed many of his previous films. The first half did a nice job of establishing the rigidity of this particular post-apocalyptic society (they call it “the ruin”), and making the characters, especially Jonas (Brenton Thwaites), people whose lives I wanted to follow.
Jonas is almost 16 (12 in the book) and is about to be assigned his life’s work. To his shock he is chosen as a “Receiver,” who will learn from the “Giver” (Jeff Bridges, who also produced the film) the secret past history of, well, everything, so he will be able to advise the society’s leaders when necessary. Now, normally this young adult trend of enabling a teenager to suddenly redefine an entire society — or being forced to fight to the death, or being trained to fight a war with one’s mind — drives me nuts. But here it actually seemed sensible, since the youngsters have been schooled for years to be placed in well-defined situations that fully utilize their personalities and talents. This society seems to be founded on good sense and strong values.
This must be the case for the movie to work, and it is so. Then the movie posits that freedom of knowledge, choice and action is surrendered to authority for the sake of serenity, and that the sacrifice of one’s true soul is simply too much to ask. That’s when the Giver informs Jonas of the nastiness of real life — war, suffering, cruelty, death — but also allows him to discover love and all the emotions that follow. Soon Jonas is hiking across the wilderness — with a baby, no less — to break the memory barrier that will allow everyone to experience what he has experienced and question everything they have learned.
A memory barrier? Really? That’s when I lost interest in this tale. An electronic wall apparently exists (why?) that, when crossed by a Giver or Receiver, will suddenly expand the memories of everyone constrained by the barrier, allowing them to know everything that has occurred in history. First of all, why would such a thing ever exist? If the elders don’t want people to remember, why would a device exist that could remind them? Secondly, what would really happen if people who had no concept of war, cruelty, passion, lust, suffering, cruelty, depression or powerful emotion were suddenly, without warning, inundated by a wave of societal memory, unencumbered by guidance from the Giver or anyone else? Chaos would be the result, utter chaos, with a lot of violence and death, I imagine. Within moments.
I think the author needed something that would allow the strict societal cycle to be broken and things to begin anew. But what a ridiculous, badly conceived idea! That’s my opinion, and I’ll be happy to argue it with anyone. The result is a movie that is provocative and compelling up to a point when babies are put in peril, when a key character compassionately murders people without even realizing it (really?) and one disaffected teenager is the only person who can save everyone from themselves and the artificial existence they have constructed. What a bunch of bilge water.
So ultimately I cannot recommend the film, despite the presence of Meryl Streep, a unique use of color to illustrate content, and plenty of interesting ideas. But if you see it, watch how often characters already break the rules, and how often logic is simply overwhelmed by story demands. This movie needed greater development than it received, and it suffers as a result. ☆ ☆. 4 September 2014.