Lois Lowry's The Giver has been a staple of classrooms since it was first published two decades ago and inspired a whole genre of dystopian young adult novels. Ironically, some of those dystopian novels have become movies, while The Giver sat without its own film. With The Hunger Games and Divergent both making millions, The Weinstein Company and Walden Media decided it was time to back an adaptation of The Giver. Sadly, they were way too late.
Lowry created a world where a group of Elders have complete control over the youth, who are all given their assigned destinies. Part of the Elders' control includes keeping citizens from having emotions and memories. Bizarrely, even though they don't want anyone to have memories of what humanity used to be like, they still have a Receiver, who is responsible for keeping all these memories and ultimately passes that information down to another, younger Receiver.
Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) is assigned to be the new Receiver and he has to train with the current Receiver, who is now The Giver (Jeff Bridges). As he “absorbs” memories of what humans were like in the past, he also understands the emotions the Elders tried to eradicate. This also makes him rebellious, and reminds the Chief Elder (Meryl Streep) of the Giver's previous student, his daughter Rosemary (Taylor Swift in a bit part). Rosemary learned too much and, overwhelmed, committed suicide. Apparently, this wasn't enough to discourage the Elders from assigning the Giver another Receiver.
Eventually, Jonas decides that he needs to teach his girlfriend Asher (Odeya Rush) all these feelings. The Elders don't like it and try to stop him.
The Giver is infuriatingly slow for a 90-minute movie. For the first hour, Michael Mitnick and Robert B. Weide's script does literally nothing. They keep Jonas' training going forever and while it might be ok for a novel to stick on this for awhile, a movie has to keep moving, especially one this short. It feels like the writers, along with director Phillip Noyce were more interested in the world Lowry created than actually telling a story within it.
The acting is also terrible. Thwaites never really impresses in the lead role and the younger stars around him feel generic. Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep try to bring the film some respectability, but they’re just phoning it in. Bridges is doing a particularly good Yoda impression, though.
The Giver was a turkey in theaters and surfaced on Blu-ray and DVD Tuesday from Anchor Bay. The bonus material is actually pretty strong, starting off with a 40-minute table read, where Bridges’ late father, the great Lloyd Bridges, reads the part of The Giver and Bud Cort narrates. It certainly makes you wish that the film happened 10 years ago when that tape was made.
Other material is more standard fare, like a 20-minute “making of” and a super short interview with Lowry. There’s also a blurb with OneRepbulic’s Ryan Tedder talking about his bland song for the movie. Lastly, there’s a study guide for teachers to use the movie while having students read the book. All material is also included on the DVD, which is a plus.
Sadly, The Giver is a generic movie about embracing our differences. If only the film itself tried a bit harder to separate itself from the glut of young adult dystopian movies, it might have been successful.