sameness

Atrocious. It's so unbelievably boring, cheesy, cheap-looking and filled with horrible performances. Even vets like Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges phone it in here. The three leads are horrible. The only one who I'll give some credit is Cameron Monaghan as he gets absolutely nothing to work with. The main guy and girl (who I referred to as a D-list Chloe Moretz) both suck and their chemistry is nonexistent. Katie Holmes and Alexander Sarsgaard are fine but forgettable in underdeveloped roles, and Taylor Swift is literally in the movie for one minute and is horrible in that scene. It's so, so cheap looking. It doesn't even feel finished. And I know the book supposedly was the inspiration for the majority of the young adult novels of today, but this movie fails to prove why it is necessary or different than any of the far superior other adaptations out there. The first 20 minutes are literally the exact same as Divergent to a tee (except this movie seriously makes Divergent look like fucking Citizen Kane). I didn't feel like there were any kind of dramatic stakes whatsoever. The plot was so jumbled and the climax was awful - there was no world building present whatsoever to even understand why the characters were in this predicament or why one infant child that seems to be the center of everything is important. There are so many moments of faux-sentimentality or wink-wink-nudge-nudge moments that are supposed to be 'symbolism' that it's nauseating, and the director relies far too much on stock footage for these sequences anyway. It's honestly absolutely horrible, the good actors involved should be ashamed of themselves for participating in it and it deserves to bomb (and I think it will).

This won't have good word of mouth. There's almost no action in it whatsoever despite what the trailers suggest, and their halfhearted attempt at adding some sort of teen love triangle doesn't work at all. D+

they are not *literally* the exact same. this is, in fact, a different movie.

I don't think it is a different movie.

Well, duh. The source material is kind of a big deal in YA lit history, and it's pretty obvious to anyone who had some familiarity with the book that Veronica Roth lifted the sorting ceremony from The Giver.

You *literally* read his reviews?

As for the film, it was boring and inoffensive. I can only vaguely remember the book from reading it when it first came out.

As I said, I never read the book. And since the film came out after, it feels like a cash-in (even though I know Lowry's book was written well before).

they're good for a laugh

The cinematic equivalent of sleepwalking (which basically seems like what Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges are doing here). It really only scratches the surface of Lois Lowry's esteemed YA novel, and consequently feels rushed, unfocused and very "been there, done that." C-

The best and most apt word to describe The Giver as a film, in my opinion, is underdeveloped. There are qualities to be found throughout this relatively brief film—an interesting idea here, a strong moment of performance there—but they are never explored to their full potential. It is a retreating cinematic experience and therefore verges on dull. The storyline unfolds in a futuristic world in which government-mandated drugs have rendered the populace content and unified, but also monochrome and without spirit. War is gone, but so are music, poetry, and romance. People live in domestic units, do not lie, and are chastised if they do not use precise language. They are also assigned jobs based on traits observed during their childhood. Teenage protagonist Jonas, played solidly, but not spectacularly by an earnest Brenton Thwaites, receives an unusual one: the Receiver of Memory. He reports to a mysterious community elder (top-billed Jeff Bridges) who teaches him to access a vibrant human history of achievement, failure, longing, and pain. It is knowledge denied to everyone else so as to not disrupt their limited and placid worldviews. Once empowered and enlightened, Jonas is tempted to rebel.

As noted by others, this film faces a strange predicament. Though adapted from author Lois Lowry's celebrated 1993 novel, now part of the canon of American children's literature and often taught in junior high, it launches after such films as The Hunger Games and Divergent. Therefore many of its conceptual and visual elements play as derivative of those mega-hits, despite the fact its literary source predates both by well over a decade. It is a line of criticism which may be unfair, yet is also inevitable. Now and then, the film is able to portray the expansion of Jonas' understanding in tactile and vivid ways: the idea of slowly transitioning from B&W to sepia to full color is hardly revolutionary, but employed well here. Often, however, it relies on ultra-glib MTV-style montages of "life" (read: babies laughing, beautiful people dancing, dogs at play, sunsets, waterfalls, and other banal postcard images). It is an unsatisfactory and ultimately failed shortcut to portraying the complexity of the human condition. The film is also short to a fault. The first act races through essential character development and world building (leaning, of course, on explanatory voice-over and on-the-nose on-screen text), while the third act almost hilariously compresses an epic, David Lean-style journey through desert and tundra into a nonthreatening nonevent. Despite these flaws, however, this is nowhere near an awful film. It is nicely photographed and designed as a rule, and Bridges (who championed this adaptation for a long time) delivers a full and persuasive performance as man left fatigued and frustrated after years spent alone and burdened by a wealth of beautiful and painful memories. I was also won over by the fresh-faced Odeya Rush as Fiona, Jonas' prepossessing love interest and confederate. As for Meryl Streep as an authoritarian leader and the closest the film comes to an antagonist (a female answer to Donald Sutherland's heavy in The Hunger Games), she is icily severe and otherworldly enough when it counts, even if her performance has a certain phoned-in quality we do not expect from this most revered of performers.

C+

There are moments early in this film... I will use one as a case-in-point: Jonas' friend shouts he wants any job but, I believe, waste management or maintenance or another such gig. This comment implies such dynamics and feelings as class division, desire, and jealousy, which undermines the idea everyone in this world at this point (except Jeff Bridges) is drugged into complacency and sameness.

Lois Lowry's young adult book was always going to make for a difficult translation to the screen, but even with that qualification in mind, The Giver is still a disappointment. To the film's credit, it fares fine for the first two acts, during which is stays mostly faithful to the source material and explores some interesting (if rushed) concepts about the loss of innocence and the bliss of ignorance. It also makes effective use of color in order to better illustrate the changes in the protagonist's understanding of the world. Most of the changes up to this point are understandable, even if they strain credulity (like casting the clearly mid-twentysomething Brenton Thwaites as the sixteen-year-old protagonist). However, when the film veers away from the book in the third act, it becomes just another generic young adult fantasy about a chosen one who must free his society from the tyranny of a clearly evil antagonist (something that the book did not have, and something that the film struggles to establish with Meryl Streep's character). As a result, the ambiguity that made the book memorable is absent, and the film limps to a disappointing finish. It's far from a disaster, but with all the interesting ideas at play, this adaptation deserved a better final product than this one.

C+

Color me surprised. I thought this was actually incredibly entertaining with mostly good performances. The only negative thing I have to say about it was that it was way too rushed, though that isn't completely a fault of the film because I remember the book (which I remember disliking) being the same way. From what I remember, this wasn't a very faithful adaptation of the book but I thought it was better. Brenton Thwaites, Meryl Streep, Jeff Bridges, Katie Holmes and Odeya Rush are all very good here. The only performance I really disliked was unfortunately Cameron Monaghan, whom I am usually a fan of. It was also a very well directed movie and very pretty to look like. The Giver is nothing new but it is lite, short and never dull. I'm happy I checked it out.

B-

this was better than I thought it'd be but it still wasn't great. I remember really enjoying the book when I read it years ago, and it seems like this doesn't stray too far away from the source material unlike the trailers made it seem (terrible advertising for this btw) but it does indeed feel slight. The male lead was pretty good I thought.

I really enjoyed it myself. My only issue is that it's too short and the finale feels rushed. Should have at least been 2 hours but it doesn't even reach the hour and a half mark.

7/10 ( B )

I enjoyed the book this was based on, and I enjoyed the first hour of this film. Unfortunately, I got called in to work and couldn't watch the last half hour before it was due back at the Redbox.

Save your lunch money for a few days and rent it again.

Eff you.

I liked your Channing Tatum avatar much better. Whoever you have now looks much more like a penis.

this thread took an interesting turn. Definitely more interesting than The Giver.

If you don't know who is in my avatar, you are obviously not as big of a music theater fan as you say you are.

True

Guess not. Who is it?