The Giver
The Giver was released to a US only audience on the 15th of August 2014 – major disappointment for me as I had been anticipating its release for quite some months. I had to wait until I was able to stream it online and only got around to watching it quite recently.
Based on the novel of the same name, by Lois Lowery, published in 1993, it had been in some form of production for over 20 years (granted much of that time was spent in development hell). The events of the novel, and film, take place in a utopian society of the future. The existence of suffering has been wiped from memory; there is no hunger, war, bereavement or even death in our way of thinking. The weather remains a constant, comfortable level – no fluctuation in temperature, humidity, weather patterns or day length. Humanity has adopted the ideology of ‘Sameness’. Differences are not celebrated, it being rude (and subject to punishment) to draw attention to aspects that are not the same between individuals. The book is a fantastic insight into the concepts of equality and what it means to be human. It’s an excellent gateway into the social science fiction genre and I highly recommend giving it a read.
But on to the film. All in all I think the production team made great use of the source material. There were major changes, some good, some not so good, that I’ll go into momentarily, but for the most part I was impressed with how they handled the world and characters they were working with.
There were both major and minor changes made to the plot and setting, many I felt were necessary and done with good taste. A minor change for example was changing the age of Jonas (the protagonist) from 12 to 18, this I felt was imperative and would have been the first amendment I would have made to the script. I just feel having him older, but still a teenager, allows us to still recognise the huge weight that has been placed upon someone so young, yet requires less suspension of disbelief when it comes to the actions he carries out. We feel an 18 year old would be more capable of such actions (as you can see I am trying to give as little away as possible).
The film more or less skips the first 5 chapters of the book, jumping straight to the ‘Ceremony of Growth’ - as called in the film. This is a yearly gathering of everyone in the community to mark the progression of every child on to their next year of development. For the oldest children it is a ceremony during which they are assigned a job, one they will complete for the rest of their working lives. In the book we receive a comprehensive introduction to the Ceremony before the event occurs, where as in the film we’re dropped right in. I can see why they did this; they were able to progress the plot much more rapidly and I do think it paid off for them. Any important information that had been skipped over was gradually fed into the story as it progressed, and it did create a sense of mystery and intrigue, immersing us in the journey of discovery with Jonas.
Another small, yet significant change was the way in which Jonas receives memories from The Giver. In the novel Jonas lies on a bed as The Giver transmits the memories through his hand into Jonas’ naked back. It does build the impression that Jonas is vulnerable to the power of the memories he must receive, but it does strike me as being clumsy to film and rather difficult to pull off. In the film The Giver transmits the memories by grabbing Jonas’ wrists. It loses some of the vulnerability, it being a more powerful gesture, yet gave rise to some very moving scenes. I’m really not sure which orientation I prefer, but I can’t knock them for adapting it.
A change I don’t think was as successfully executed was the increased romanticisation of Jonas and Fiona’s relationship, I know it was to demonstrate their developing of emotions and it was present in the novel itself, yet I feel it was more tastefully handled and less centre stage in the text. I feel it could have been deal with differently, but it’s not a major aspect of the film so I’m good with it.
The final change I want to comment on, even though I could go on for hours, is the additional insight we received into The Giver’s and The Chief Elder’s perspectives. The book of course is written from Jonas’ point of view, therefore we only ever gain information through him – we are entirely oblivious of what goes on behind his back. The film was able to explore aspects of multiple characters, and indeed they used this to add an extra dimension to the progression of the story. I was quite pleased to see this done successfully.
In fairness I do think they could have dived a bit deeper into the underlying messages, themes and tone carried by the book. It could have been a slight bit darker and more graphic in parts.
The casting was an accurate enough representations of how I envisioned the characters. The only 2 I didn’t feel were quite right were Jeff Bridges as The Giver and Emma Tremblay as Lilly (Jonas’ sister). I think Lilly should have looked rather younger than she appeared, but at 9 years old you have to balance looking young enough with convincing acting ability. Jeff Bridges wouldn’t have been my first choice for The Giver, yet I think due to his ongoing commitment to the final delivery of the film and involvement from the very start, it was a fitting gesture having him play such a pivotal part.
The film is a good complement to the novel; if you enjoyed the film, you’ll love the book; and if you loved the book, you’ll enjoy the film.