Giver, The (2014) [Blu-ray]
Drama | Sci-Fi

Tagline: Search for truth. Find freedom

In a seemingly perfect community, without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, a young boy is chosen to learn from an elderly man about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world.

Storyline: This film, based on Lois Lowry's book, tells the story of a perfect world. Everyone here is happy. When Jonas is 18 years old, he's chosen to be the community's Receiver of Memories. He enters into training with an old man called The Giver. From the Giver, Jonas learns about pain, sadness, war, and all the unhappy truths of the "real" world. He quickly realizes that his community is fake. Confronted with this reality, Jonas faces difficult choices about his own life and his future. Written by Anonymous

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, November 13, 2014 -- There's an old adage that says "those who don't know history are destined to repeat it." What about those who choose, for all intents and purposes, to forget it altogether? Since history is shaped by man's strengths and weaknesses, does history still matter if man's weaknesses are removed from the equation? If greed, anger, and fear are taken off the table, is man truly doomed to repeat history's greatest follies and most dangerous personal shortcomings if he is simply never exposed to their realities? Can man's figurative wires be reworked for his greater good, or will those inner base emotions still find a way to rise to the surface, regardless of how strongly they're externally stifled? The Giver, based on the acclaimed novel of the same name by Author Lois Lowry, takes viewers inside a society where anything negative, and anything that may be construed as negative or that could potentially lead to something negative, has been purged, effectively replacing human emotion and ambition with a collective mindlessness "for the greater good." Overflowing with thought-provoking complex themes and challenging metaphors, the film does well in telling Lowry's story but doesn't effectively convey all the deeper meanings with the subtlety and nuance it deserves. It's up to the audience to unravel the layers and decipher the meaning -- can man weed out his own natural instinct, for example? -- making the movie more a springboard and less the final word on Lowry's frightening vision of the future and hopeful analysis of man's best in naturally, not forcefully, overcoming his worst.

Following a great disaster, man rebuilt communities and populated them with individuals whose memories of the past were erased, where history is not taught, where individuality is removed from the societal equation. It's a society built on strict rules and proper language usage, where people wear assigned clothes and, upon maturation, perform assigned duties. There is no lying, no popularity, no winners, no losers, no temptation, nothing that could lead to any sort of wrongdoing that could hurt oneself, others, or the larger community. Jonas (Brenton Thwaites), upon his maturation, has been assigned to serve as an understudy to the only person in the society allowed to break the rules and retain a knowledge and understanding of history. He learns from the man (Jeff Bridges) and immediately comes to see the truth behind the colorless façade that shapes his world. Soon, Jonas must confide in or confront his friends (Odeya Rush and Cameron Monaghan) and go against the decrees of the community's chief elder (Meryl Streep) by breaking the rules in the name of what he now knows to be right, even if society deems it to be wrong.

The Giver plays like some strange amalgamation of Elysium, Logan's Run, The Island, and Pleasantville, depicting a colorless, retro-future 1950s black and white exterior styling (Pleasantville) with story prompts that focus on a world separated from its unwanted components (Elysium, The Island) and built around a ceremony similar to Logan's Run's "Carrousel," there a ritual in which people are literally killed, here a ritual in which they are figuratively killed, cut off from any hope for freedom of choice and self-determination. It's not taking life at maturity but assigning life at maturity. Is there a real difference between physical death and spiritual and emotional stifling? Not really, but at least in the world of The Giver there's that one-in-a-million chance someone might wake up and come to understand that life as an enslaved, practically brainwashed zombie is not living but rather operating for something other than one's own emotional satisfaction and the betterment of themselves and those for whom they care the most. The film predictably maneuvers through cliché examples of pleasure and pain, but the greater point stands in its spirited determination to show the distinction between knowing and feeling, seeing and exploring, and appreciating life rather than simply passing through it as someone else commands.

One must really wonder, then, how those arranging the new society could tolerate a wild card in the from of "the giver" in the first place. Throughout the story, the giver -- and both of his apprentices -- cause nothing but "trouble" for the rest of society. It's like if a society banned guns but one person hangs on to a gun with the authority to use it at his or her discretion while everyone else is ignorant that such a thing even exists. After all, these "givers" and "receivers" are allowed to bend and break many of the rules as they see fit. They're allowed to lie, for example, in order to keep their secrets safe. Should a de facto " historical counselor" really be necessary if a society stringently follows the rules and lives in a world where anything truly negative has all but been engineered away through drugs and careful planning? Does that not imply that whatever they are doing, whatever drugs they are pushing into their systems, are not properly erasing human ambition and individuality? It seems like man can't be so easily controlled after all, particularly those at the top writing the rules, enforcing the rules, and "in the know" behind the scenes with murder on their hands and drugs in their syringes. In essence, they wish to be counseled by history but they wish not to know history. Does that also not imply history's importance to society, and does not singling out Jonas at the ceremony only further accentuate his -- and history's, then -- importance? Does that, by extension, not demonstrate the importance of feeling, of understanding, of critical thinking, of self control? Perhaps the one thing this radical new society did take with them was that adage about repeating history, even as they wish to eliminate it, but it seems like that trace of history is ultimately more a burden to those who run the society than it is a benefit. Perhaps it's all better explained in Lowry's book, but in the movie it would seem like the best solution for the people who want to maintain the new status quo would be to "release" the giver, to use their parlance, and be done with every last little bit of connection to the past and ensure that there's nothing to lead them astray. It's a fun mind game, and it's a shame the movie doesn't better dig into it beyond whatever facilitates driving forward the story and a few action pieces in the third act.

Ultimately, and unfortunately, The Giver is better thought about than watched, more a springboard for ideas and deeper thought and less the bearer of pure philosophy. The film strives to engage its audience from the inside out, beginning with an emotionally driven and somewhat dark tale of far overreaching security and the absence of individuality and transform it into an Action movie by the end. It's also far too condensed at under 90 minutes runtime (minus credits) to really dig all that deeply into its complex themes. It scratches the surface and engages the audience but seems more content to tell the story rather than to build it, to show the characters rather than more densely shape them, to depict the world rather than define it. There's enough here to get the point across but little else. Neither the script nor the performers feel like they truly inhabit the world, and even if that's the point -- that they're more robot than human being -- there's an evident shallowness, a lack of real meaningful exploration, and Jonas' reality changes too suddenly and his moral compass aligns too quickly to really believe that his longtime vision of utopia could change on a dime, even considering his "gift" of feeling and seeing more than everyone else before being assigned to serve as the community's new historian. Again, it's a wonder someone who has been identified with what seem like unwanted gifts would be placed in charge of the one thing that could bring the entire society down. The performances are generally fine but lack the nuance the story demands, largely because the screenplay is spread too thin and the story too generalized to allow even great actors like Streep and Bridges to do much more than sleepwalk through the movie.

Is pleasure in life worth the pain comes with it? Is life worth living if it's straight vanilla with no variety and practically no free will? How is "life" even living beyond the purest definition of the word when existence takes place in a vacuum where choice doesn't exist and turmoil has been forcibly removed from the equation? Perhaps The Giver's theme ought to be yet another popular adage, the one that says "you don't know what you've got until it's gone." That holds absolutely true here in a world where conformity has been forced and individuality taken away. It's a fascinating story that's unfortunately only moderately well done in film form. It's too condensed, too forced, too cliché in places, but it's delicious food for thought and much better in hindsight than it is up on the screen and in the moment. It's a worthwhile watch but those interested in the subject matter would probably be better off reading the book first. Anchor Bay's Blu-ray release of The Giver delivers satisfactory video and audio. There are several good supplements in support. Recommended as a compliment to the book.

[CSW] -3.3- I was hesitant to rent this but since it had Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep in it I figured people with that kind of star power wouldn't pick a bad director and script. The story is simple. It based on the belief that you can't sterilize society from its shortfalls and evils without also eradicating its best qualities. "If my devils are to leave me, I am afraid my angels will take flight as well." - Rainer Maria Rilke. In some sense this concept is a little over simplified in this movie, but the movie was well made. There was very creative use of selective black and white and color to emphasize some very good story telling. Never boring and definitely entertaining it is a once-is-enough must see, even if you have to rent it or wait for it to come on television.
[V4.0-A4.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.


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