The Giver
Now playing at International Village
Entering the busy young adult film fray is The Giver, based on Lois Lowry’s Newberry award-winning book about a future in which human memory, emotion, seasons – even colour – has been wiped clean in order to maintain order.
The novel came out in 1993 and actor Jeff Bridges started mulling over a film adaptation only two years after that, meaning that it has been germinating for the past 18 years or so. Just as well, Lowry noted at this week’s New York premiere: now Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges are old enough to play key parts. That’ll boost sales from older viewers who didn’t have to read the book as part of their middle-school curriculum.
Aussie Brenton Thwaites plays Jonas, recent graduate in a utopian planned community perched high on a plateau. While his friends Fiona (Odeya Rush) and Asher (Cameron Monaghan) are assigned routine jobs in service of the Community, Jonas is singled out to be the sole Receiver of Memory, the one who stores and maintains all the books, knowledge and memory of life before “the ruin.” The current Receiver of Memory (Bridges) is now by default the Giver, the one who teaches Jonas and advises the Elders, “providing guidance in the present using memories of the past.”
It’s a steep and painful learning curve for Jonas, who, like everyone else in the Community, takes daily injections to keep from feeling highs and lows. Thwaites effectively conveys the wonder of discovery: of feeling snow, of hearing music for the first time. (Taylor Swift, in hologram, helps briefly with this.)
With all the knowledge transferred from the Giver, Jonas begins to question his surroundings: “If you can’t feel, what’s the point?” He starts asking questions of Mother (Katie Holmes) and Father (Alexander Skarsgard, especially good). He stops taking his meds. He starts to wonder what’s really over the edge in Elsewhere, where the old folks go to die, nudge nudge.
Knowledge, of course, is where revolution is born. “You can change things, you can make things better,” encourages the Giver, dangerous advice in a community that values Sameness above all else. But it’s the threat to a kindred spirit – a baby – that spurs Jonas to act quickly.
This is where the film loses its way. Scenes of Jonas fleeing are far-fetched; the resolution is rushed and unsatisfactory, especially if you’re a fan of the novel. This is where the 96-minute running time could’ve been stretched with a few more scenes to wrap things up. That, and the fact that an extra scene or two might have cut down on the increasingly intrusive voiceover narration.
Thematically, The Giver is right on track. The story starts with typical teen angst – worries about an uncertain future, career nerves – and then segues into larger themes of free will, euthanasia, sexual repression, and how much we need to sacrifice for the greater good. “When people have the freedom to choose, they choose wrong every single time,” says the Elder (Streep, convincing in her few scenes). You can’t read today’s headlines of war and strife without at least contemplating Lowry’s point of view, doubtless one of the reasons The Giver has been one of the most frequently banned books since its publication.
