'The Giver' Film Review

The Giver contains big-name actors and actresses along with a heart warming story. Based on the children's novel by Lois Lowry, the movie visualizes the futuristic and utopian society of a white-dominated "community." The story takes place after "The Ruin" in which it is assumed caused chaos and immediate need for a shift in social norms. In this community, there are endless amounts of rules towards which the population must follow. With that, there are no memories of the past nor The Ruin and there are no emotions. Jonas, is a young man who becomes the next "receiver of memory" towards which his job is to advise the government. The Giver explores what it means to be in a "perfect" society and the consequences of not having emotion.

              

In the beginning of the movie, we are introduced to the society of which the precise rules are laid-out to the audience, some of which include: proper usage of language, take the daily medication, always return to one's dwelling before curfew, and never lie. Soon, it is clear the medication alters reality for it does not allow people to see color nor experience any emotion. Along with the proper usage of language and the curfew, the society has been carefully organized and designed around control.

At a certain age, young people go through the "ceremony of commencement" towards which they are assigned to jobs the "elders" have carefully chosen for them. Meryl Streep's character is the Chief Elder and is the leader of the community. She demands respect and also commands the audience's attention. She is compliant with the rules of the community and is unaccepting of differences or unexpected behavior. Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) is selected to be the next receiver of memory and consequently, the next receiver of emotions.

After a few trainings with "the giver" (Jeff Bridges), Jonas realizes there is more to life than the controlled environment he and his community blindly lives in. He experiences all of the emotions the Chief Elders have been trying to suppress for the hopes of creating a society without pain, racism, hatred, sexism, and murder. Jonas' tolerance of this concept was rejected when he found out what it meant for the elderly people and sickly babies to be "released." Instead of calling it murder, they changed the meaning to "release to elsewhere." People are unaware of the true meaning of being released and are convinced being released is a good thing. Although, when Jonas discovers murder and death, he is outraged by the hypocrisy and the brainwashing him and his loved ones are experiencing. In the effort to enlighten his community, he endures a difficult adventure towards which he crosses the "boundary of memories." Once the boundary was crossed, the entire community experienced the emotions that were stollen from them.

The Giver is a heart-warming story and highlights the problems with a controlling society meant to be "perfect." The movie explores the idea of a society without emotion and yet remains intact and functional. The movie also argues that emotions are a fundamental human right and should not be undermined or controlled. And even to a certain extent, the movie argues pessimism is more dangerous than pain. The Chief Elder is an example of this idea for she believes that emotions are the reason for pain. She is not wrong, but her inability to grow and learn from bad experiences does not help the community either. The Giver underlines the idea that for a society to be "perfect," people must have the desire and understanding of good experiences and therefore, have an optimistic mindset. If I were to rate this movie, I would give it three out of five stars. I enjoyed the provocative story and appreciated the cinematography but there were too many plot holes of the movie. I do not mind the "hollywood" effect is has for I believe if the movie was taken more seriously, it would be confusing and not as heart-warming. Although, I had a lot of questions that were not addressed. For example, how is it scientifically possible for people to "transfer" memories through the touch of hands? How do words come to Jonas if he was never taught them? If they didn't want bad emotions, couldn't the society have taught better coping mechanisms instead? I have a lot of questions for how certain aspects of the movie worked. It leaves me to wonder if modern society would benefit from more "sameness" or not.