The Giver
Tags: violence, cruelty, murder, flashback

Plot synopsis:
Set in the near-future, following a great war called "The Ruin", a community in North America has lived in tranquility without the existence of emotions or color, as these would produce conflicts. The citizens have also had their memories wiped. We follow young teenager Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) as he rides his bike with his two best friends Asher (Cameron Monaghan) and Fiona (Odeya Rush). It is the day before their Ceremony in which they will be assigned their positions in the community, something that makes Jonas rather nervous.The three friends go to the Nurturing Center where the newborns are. Jonas's Father (Alexander Skarsgard) is working there. The kids find a crying baby, whom Father says is named Gabriel. They are not supposed to know the child's name but Father says he whispers the baby's name to him to soothe him. Fiona, having a natural talent with children, is able to calm the baby.Jonas has dinner at home with his father, mother (Katie Holmes) and younger sister Lilly (Emma Tremblay). They discuss their recent feelings for the day, though Jonas has to be precise with his language, as certain feelings like fear or love are otherwise forbidden. He asks his parents if they were nervous before they were assigned to their current positions, for fear that there was nothing left for them. Father assures Jonas that the Elders have been watching him closely since he was a baby, so they know where to put him.The next day is the Ceremony, started off with an introduction from the Chief Elder (Meryl Streep). She appears as a hologram since she cannot be there in person, though she is able to restate the events that led to the community, as well as assign the kids to their positions. During the Ceremony, Jonas notices an old man (Jeff Bridges) looking over at him. Asher is given the job of a drone pilot. Jonas is skipped over while the other kids are announced, and Fiona is assigned to be in the Nurturing Center. The Chief Elder then gets to Jonas, stating that he has all four attributes (intelligence, integrity, courage, and an ability to look beyond) that convinced the Elders to select Jonas as the new Receiver of Memories. Everybody starts chanting Jonas's name.The next day, Jonas begins his private training with the old man, who is called The Giver, as he is the one who passes on memories to the Receiver. Jonas arrives at his house on the edge of the community overlooking a vast skyline. Jonas enters the house and down to a library area where the Giver introduces himself and tells Jonas about his training. The Giver holds all the memories that came before even the Elders can remember prior to The Ruin. He grabs both of Jonas's wrists, sending him into a memory of snowy woods, and of Jonas riding a sled down a hill. He can see himself looking and feeling excited, and then he comes to a cabin.Gabe is brought to Jonas's home by a nurse from the Nurturing Center, still crying. They are assigned to watch over him at the moment until he "catches up". Lilly adores the baby and wants him to sleep in her room. Jonas looks at the baby and senses a connection where he believes that Gabe will one day be selected as he was.During the next training session with The Giver, Jonas is given a memory of riding on a boat. The feeling to him is powerful enough for him to start to see colors around himself and The Giver. He explains to Jonas that the colors, along with the emotions, would allow everyone to feel conflicting emotions that would produce problems. He asks Jonas if he agrees that sameness is necessary, and while Jonas does agree, he believes what he's just seen is also very beautiful.Jonas meets up with Fiona and Asher. Asher talks about how he's been able to fly the drones close to Elsewhere, which he describes as mostly farms and rocks, with two rocks nearly touching. Jonas offers to show them what he's been learning by having them grab trays and slide down a slope. They have fun and laugh, and when Jonas goes over to help Fiona up, a voice tells them they cannot touch people outside their family unit.Meanwhile, the Giver meets with the Chief Elder over his training with Jonas. She warns him to not repeat the mistake with the last Receiver, who is implied to have killed herself.Jonas' next session with The Giver has them playing music on the piano and sharing a memory of a party with people dancing and having a great time. Jonas also sees himself and Fiona running to a tree and passionately kissing.The Chief Elder contacts Jonas at home to ask him about the training he's received. Jonas has been told repeatedly that he is not to discuss his training, so he tells the Chief Elder that he just sits there and doesn't talk, and then comes home.In the next session, Jonas sees horrific memories of an elephant being shot down, as well as himself in the position of a soldier whose partner is gunned down. The images overwhelm Jonas. He later learns that the previous Receiver, a teenage girl named Rosemary (Taylor Swift), was also distraught by the images she saw. Jonas sees a memory of The Giver playing the piano alongside Rosemary while she sings. Jonas also sees a projection of his father and a nurse in the nurturing center with two babies. The nurse takes one baby while Father is left with one baby that is deemed too weak. He injects something into the baby's head, killing it and then putting it in a box that is sent into a furnace. Jonas is horrified to come across this revelation of what they know as "releasing into Elsewhere."When Jonas next sees Fiona, he suggests to her that she stop taking her morning injections, which is what numbs the emotions in everyone. He later takes her to the Triangle, a spot where they and Asher enjoyed going to. There, Jonas kisses Fiona for the first time.Jonas goes home and learns from Father that he is set to release Gabe the next day. At night, he sneaks out after curfew to find Gabe. Asher finds him and confronts him, only to get punched in the face by Jonas. Jonas makes it to the Nurturing Center, with Fiona there to help him get Gabe. They create a diversion that allows Jonas to get out with Gabe without getting caught. Jonas hops on a motorcycle to escape, but not before Fiona kisses him one last time. The Elders keep their watch on Jonas, but they lose him once he makes it outside the community.The Chief Elder sends Asher out on a drone to locate Jonas and Gabe, and orders Asher to "lose" him. Asher finds Jonas running across the desert, flying the drone over his friend to pull him up with a beam. Jonas begs his friend to hear him out and recognize what the Elders are doing, and for Asher to trust Jonas. Asher complies and sets Jonas and Gabe free by dropping them in a river.The Elders watch video footage of Fiona interacting with Jonas, helping him and Gabe escape, as well as them kissing. These images confuse the Elders. She is thus condemned for helping Jonas. Fiona is brought in to the chamber where Father is ready to release her into Elsewhere. The Giver, Chief Elder, and everyone else sits in attendance. The Giver brings up Rosemary, who happened to be his daughter. He says he loved her, and he doesn't care if the Elders don't want to hear that word. Mere moments before Father is ready to inject Fiona, Jonas rides a sled beyond the borders of Elsewhere with Gabe. This triggers a reaction in which all the memories (and the color) returns to the community. Everybody begins to feel again, with Fiona and Mother both shedding tears.In the final scene, Jonas, near-frozen and still carrying Gabe, walks through the bitterly cold, snowy woods to find a cabin.... the same one seen from the Giver's memories. He thinks he hears people inside singing, though it could merely be an echo. Whatever happens, Jonas acknowledges that The Giver brought him and Gabe there. Jonas and the infant Gabe enter the cabin.... leaving the outcome up in the air.

Review: That takes you out of the overall feeling the movie is supposed to give you, the message it has to offer.Next, while the book got you emotionally attached to Jonas and what is happening to him, the movie falls flat.
His training is to telepathically connect with Bridges all the experiences of the past, the good and the bad.The use of color in film is never thought of this day, it's simply assumed that films now will be photographed that way.
When he discovers that the baby Gabriel that he loves as a brother will be eliminated, he decides to change his society but the Chief Elder will do anything to stop him."The Giver" is a film with a story with and interesting premise about a "perfect emotionless society".
I absolutely love the book, and I had heard varying opinions about the movie (mostly negative), but I wanted to watch it with an open mind and present my own opinion.
Firstly, the acting is top-notch: Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges were perfect of course, but Brenton Thwaites and Odeya Rush also brought depth to their characters.
I loved seeing Taylor Swift make an appearance in the film, and she gave life to a character who was only mentioned in the book.
The movie jumped right into the plot, which was good for the pacing of the story, but this meant it took longer to really understand the characters.
As much as I love the amazing use of imagery in the book, being able to actually visualize the transition from a dull community to a vivid, colorful world was breathtaking.
I have seen reviews comparing the Giver (unfavorably) to other teen dystopian movies like Divergent and Hunger Games.
That's actually a compliment, the Giver is not more of the same stuff, The critics seemingly can't accept that people are smart enough to get the point of Lois Lowry's book, and that people aren't smart enough to enjoy, much less understand, a character study and a societal study.
The relationship of Jonas with the Giver and unraveling through sociopolitical conspiracies is what makes it engaging, but again the movie doesn't have the love for that.
And to stay faithful to the source material's larger theme, during the chase at the last act, one of the characters ends up preaching out a sheer sentimental speech to the elders that feels terribly forced.How it created the communities looked cool though, with production and special effects that gives a spectacular sense of scale, and how the black-and-white world grow into colors is a fascinating watch, but I think those are the only things the filmmakers wanted to bring to life.
Designing it as an action blockbuster doesn't necessarily sound like a bad idea, but skimming out the soul that made the story compelling is what tones everything down into another generic fantasy film.
A more natural fit is Jeff Bridges who gives the gravity that should have been there throughout the film.The Giver may have the external vision; the events, culture, characters, and language stayed intact; but again, everything else suffers the same problem.
There just isn't much love to the subtext, the movie is basically just fitting in to the era of young adult novels with bad politics and rebellion; but again and again the story is never about them.
The Giver trains his protégée Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) to take on his new job as the Receiver, learning the memories of the past in order to guide the future.
While these two are the bread and butter of the movie, the supporting characters have some good acting to further enhance the story.
We also don't see enough of Fiona's and Asher's development—they play key parts towards the end, but their actions seem out of the blue.Now, the good of the movie: Above all, this movie conveys what I think is a very important message about needing pain with joy.
having recently read the book in preparation for the movie, the first thing that stood out to me was how quickly they jumped into the memories.
it cuts out all the build up of the book and depending on how you like the speed of your films, this could be good or bad.
The real star of the show is Brenton Thwaites as Jonas and he's really quite lovely in his role as the compassionate and curious Receiver.The Giver film is competing against franchises like The Hunger Games, Divergent and even The Maze Runner.
In order to give The Giver more teen appeal and to capture The Hunger Games/Divergent audience, the movie tried to be a lot that the book was not.
I can also understand why the film producers chose to up the age of the protagonists and up the angst as well, but I'm not sure it really added all that much to the overall story except making it feel like another teen movie when it should've been so much more than that.Where the film did excel was in the cinematography and use of black&white and color.
Where I think the book meandered into allegory, the movie developed the plot and made a more compelling story overall, even if some of the 'science' of how all this was possible is dubious at best.A major highlight from the film for me was seeing the usually uber sexy and seductive Alexander Skarsgård playing a nurturing father figure who worked in the nursery with newborns while his wife – played by the petite Katie Holmes – was involved in politics.
Perhaps the book has something else, but this film just feels like a derivative mash-up of "Brave New World", "The Village", "Soylent Green" and "The Matrix", with some elements of "Star Trek" added in for good measure.
The decision to start the film in Black and White, using colour as part of the later plot (no spoilers!) might have felt like a clever idea in pre-production meetings, but the execution just feels contrived and lame.
Basically it felt like a mash up of several recent films, combining the futuristic and oppressive world where people are not allowed to feel, the rules that are "for the good of the people" and where people are being assigned their roles in life, where everything is iPhone white and boring gray and where there are some young adolescent heroes that are willing to change the world.
The movie ends with a horrible deus ex machina that makes everything work out fine, despite any reasonable expectation.Now, I rate this film an average because people acted well, the film was reasonably well directed and at no moment in time did I feel like there was any attempt to do anything more than what was on the screen.
The only problem in this Social/Sci-Fi film, is its slow-pace, which needed some serious persuasion!'The Giver' Synopsis: 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.'The Giver' makes good use of its interesting premise, by translating it into a good effort cinematically.
There were several things that were added to the movie but I honestly think that they helped the people who haven't read the books understand everything a little better.
There was humor, romance and a lot of self-discovery in the movie and I personally think the casting was pretty decent although Jonas was 12 in the books.
Does it have hope for some originality?Cinematic value: 3.5 stars Family value: 3 stars Overall rating: 3.25You have to ask, 'Do we need another dystopian, young adult drama?' After Twilight, The Hunger Games and Divergent, it feels like this genre has hit its maximum capacity.
After reading the book, I understand why some fans would be upset by the changes, but they were needed to appeal to a broader audience and makes the film worth considering.
The black and white filming is intentionally unnerving until the colour of the story and Jonas' life come into focus.
Full of theories on life and enough ideas to cause you to rethink your own ideas, The Giver is an intense film about the effects of accepting the good and bad things memories of life.
I give an Oscar nod for both Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges.There is a scene towards the end of the film where The Giver and Chief Elder debate on the pros and cons of memories and allowing people to make decisions.
"The receiver" goes through this himself...2) "The receiver" carries a two year old baby days and nights through desserts, mountains and rough terrain but kids does not need food or changing...3) "The receiver" knows that their every action is being recorded and the "Chief" is looking for him by visiting the "the giver"'s house and yet he goes back to the hospital and takes his time to convince the girl friend and take a ride on a scooter.
This could be because everyone was raving about this film and maybe my expectations were set so high, it didn't live up to the hype I had heard.Don't get me wrong, this is a good film and one worth watching for the story line alone however, don't get too excited...
'THE GIVER': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)Science fiction drama film based on the popular young-adult book, of the same name, by Lois Lowry.
This new found knowledge causes a lot of distress in Jonas, as he doesn't believe these memories should be kept secret.I've heard the book is really good and you can see a lot of it's great ideas coming to life here, but it doesn't quite live up to them.
The characters might behave differently than you'd expect given their upbringing, but if you're going to watch a movie whose premise is that two people can collectively hold the memories of the world in their minds, roll with that discrepancy and enjoy what the movie has to say.
In fact, the scenes where young Jonas visits the giver and they learn about the past are when the film really picked up and has actually some really beautiful themes going throughout.
What I can say is that this movie is a boring, agonizingly boring psychological drama with no action, interminable dialogs and a story totally unoriginal and already saw innumerable times before, in "1984" (which was wrote in 1948), "brave new world" (1931), "the Logan's run"(1976) and "THX 1138" (1971): a despotic, dystopian society that manipulates the emotions of people.Also don't understand the fuss about the book, that was wrote in 1993, also absolutely unoriginal.All the movie (except the FX scenes at the end) could be made with 2000$..
This seems to be part of the recent theme of my books and films that warn the youth of the world about how bad adults are and the young can only be saved by banding together and fighting off the aged controllers.The acting by Streep and Bridges was stilted to say the least.
Yes, everyone is meant to be drugged into boredom and sameness, but that's no excuse for letting us into people's nuances— especially the main character (Brenton Thwaites) and the title character (Jeff Bridges).4) The concept is filled with inconsistencies and logical gaffes.5) It's a tiny world, like the size of a college campus, and so where are the factories, the farms, the power generators?6) Why only one "giver" and one "receiver" and what happens if they die before they are supposed to?7) Everyone's conversations are recorded, and yet no one gets in trouble for breaking the rules until much later, when things have gone awry.7) Murdering babies?
If your one of those people who are critical of movies made after books it was still good!.
If you thought this movie was worth a single star less than 10/10 or are thinking skipping a watch I urge you, please reconsider.I know this film is based on a book, which, I am most definitely going to read because the very idea of this dystopia is so real and poetic.Forget everything you know, Imagine you just came into a world where society pushes you to be what it wants you to be, this is what has happened to you and almost every other single human being on this planet.This film runs a beautiful paradox of what is happening with society today, not to mention the build up between black and white picture and incredible acting is really out of this world and captivates exactly what this movie is trying to show.Today people are going colourblind, people are at war with each other, rape each other, cold blooded murder each other, make terrible music which ruins children's lives, really, you cannot deny that we are destroying every single part that made any of us the philanthropist human beings that most once were or should be.What this film does, is, takes you to a place where this shift in the human consciousness has ended, rather abruptly, instead of getting to the root of our problems, society in this film has removed the very branches of the tree that allow us to fail.
It's a shame because the story aims at that kid-teen transition period that my class was going through back then and did a great job at selling that coming-of-age message, and now, I have to defend the book against this heinous film adaptation.
The Giver is a good but predictable story line set in a future where everyone is assigned a task at a given age and represses emotions.
Brenton Thwaites plays Jonas a perfectly handsome young man, genetically designed for perfection, somewhat bland who is charged with being the repository of banned memories for the community.This movie takes place in the future after some ruinous global war.
This is goofier than a comic book plot.The movie is done like the Wizard of Oz, mostly in black and white but with touches of colour to suggest emotion..
The Giver is based on a 1993 novel by Lois Lowry, and I believe, it is definitely among the best book to movie translations in recent history.
I understand that there are many movies based on the premise of dictatorships and oppression of the masses and the simultaneous coming of age of some good teenagers along the way, but it is very unfair to dismiss The Giver, because it is definitely different in message and execution, to THG.
The Giver is also similar to Divergent because (I don't like to say this, but) both YA novels and their movie adaptations have implausible utopian futures and societies.
If I need to read a book to understand it and like it, than exactly how good is the movie on its own?
I feel like all the people who rated "The Giver" favorably watched a different movie.
Considering how long it took for The Giver too finally make it to the big screen, you would've thought the movie would be pretty good.
Rarely does the adaptation of a good book result in a great movie.
Jonas learns, from The Giver (Jeff Bridges), that the world and life were not always so peaceful and that Pain and Emotions thrived in the past as did Love.
In here you will be reminded, at times, of other movies: Divergent, Pleasantville and The Hunger Games.The Pull in here are the conversations between Jonas and The Giver.
Jeff Bridges has wanted to make a movie out of Lois Lowry's The Giver for years.
Go See It. The Giver is a excellent movie based off the book by Lois Lowry.
Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep do a great job like they do in most of their movies.
There's a chief elder in the movie (Meryl Streep) where there's not really a corresponding character in the book.
If you have not had enough of the trending futuristic movies, and thought the novel The Giver was worth your time, there is the film to go along with it.
Well if you are looking for any movie in the category of dystopian community with the main character of Jonas, I would still not recommend The Giver.
It almost felt as if he was a rebel going against he grain.The beginning tries to tie in a relationship between 3 friends where love of course concurs all but it left a feeling of confusion towards the end.A short movie that could have had more done to it if they added 30 minutes to try to explain why the main character seeks for the outer circle.I guess the Giver was never really giving..
I wasn't sure on this film to begin with due to it being in black and white but I love that the reason for this was so when the memories returned to the main character you could see the colour and how things are different from when the city felt nothing.
In this world, only two people are actual characters: the Giver and Jonas; they're the only ones who can actually FEEL.
I loved the books and wanted to like the movie, but it sorely missed the mark.
The story follows Jonas when he comes of age and earns a mysterious role in his community that consists of the world's memories such as color, family, and love.
I liked the acting, especially in the character of the Giver, Fiona and Jonas.
Also, sometimes Jonas would see things as if he were living the past memories while other times it was more like he was seeing everything play out like a movie or something.
Also, frequent flashes of memories distracted me at times (like what am I watching again?), but they did give insight into Jonas's onset of new thoughts- the movie would feel bleak without them.