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The Giver trailer
from The Weinstein Company and Walden Media
2 of 2
The Weinstein Company and Walden Media
The Giver
The feature film adaptation of Lois Lowry's 1993 dystopian novel The Giver.
Here's the news flash: Meryl Streep, 65, is in this movie and I'm pretty sure that she will not garner her 19th nomination for Best Actress. Not that there's anything wrong with that; her character was too bureaucratic and stiff when properly played so it's not Streep's fault.
This movie is based on the best-selling novel by seventy-seven year-old Lois Lowry. I read all three books even though I was told that the target audience was young adults. I'm young; sometimes, and I know many young adults. The books were entertaining.
The setting is a post-apocalyptic community where there is no pain and behavior and thoughts are controlled just like the weather. (See The Hunger Games and Divergent or you choose your favorite dystopian society). The bicycles, clothes, and houses are white, clean, and sanitized. Sameness is the order of the day. All humans must take an injection each morning; except two people. Meryl Streep is the Chief Elder who appears via a hologram when she is too busy to attend in person. And when she says "I apologize" then the entire community says in unison "...we accept your apology." Rule: no lying.
Novelist Lowry has loaned director Phillip Noyce (Australian) her intriguing story where memories are not shared by the common person, but are preserved in the mind and psyche of an old man called The Giver (Jeff Bridges). Then, when Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) turns twelve, he is chosen to be the Receiver of Memories and acquires the memories of pain, war, and sadness of the real world aka Elsewhere. Unfortunately, Jonas learns that his community is not as pure as he believed during his childhood, and he has to make some critical life-changing choices. The Giver tells Jonas "...you may lie."
The set design coupled with the music of this movie dominate and establish the tone for description of subtle notions about snow, music, fear, a kiss and love—and betrayal. Bridges is his usual brilliant self even though I spent far too much time studying his beard and hair. Thwaites is 25 and is the big winner as the handsome hero, Jonas. He co-starred as Prince Phillip in Maleficent starring Angelina Jolie earlier this year. He's also Australian so director Noyce didn't have to look far to find his Jonas.
Noyce will also profit mightily from this film as I think it's the most significant work of his career unless you count The Bone Collector (1999) starring Denzel Washington. Noyce captured the essence of Lowry's masterful novel about the human experience and basic good and evil of mankind. This is a first-class movie. Rock 'n Roll.
Grade 91. Larry H.