17 September, 2014
Tags: The Giver
Review of The Giver Directed by Philip Noyce
The Giver is an adaption of a book of the same name, written by Lois Lowry in 1993. I have not read the book, but of those I know that have, they can be evangelical about it and some were none too happy with casting on this production. The fact that the awesome Jeff Bridges and the high Priestess of acting Meryl Streep are in it, made me want to check it out. Others including Katie Holmes and Alexander Skargaard, not so much! Jeff (as I like to call him) has tried for years to get it into production and even shot a homemade version with his father, the late great Lloyd Bridges, in role of The Giver. Makes taking videos of your cat playing with a paper bag seem oh so insignificant.
Anyway onto the film. In a seemingly Utopian community it comes time for a teenager, Jonas (defo Bieber lookalike), to receive and carry the knowledge and history of what it was like in the big bad old world before it all went asunder. You see in his world there is none of that nonsense, no way. For Jonas and his kin folk there is only sameness, and being terribly polite, Katie Holmes who plays his mother must have had plenty of background for the part, you know with the Scientology and all.
Well as you can imagine, with the great insight that Jonas receives comes a strong sense that all is not what it seems in his green and pleasant land. To say anymore would spoil the plot if like me you haven't read the book, so we will leave it there. Jeff plays his part as The Giver as you would imagine him to, engaging and strong with just enough hints at weakness. Meryl Streep has perhaps the meatier part; you never know quite what way to take her until the film really gets going. Katie and Alexander maybe method acting the part of emotionless one dimensional character, or that is just how they ac - hard to tell really. The young cast are all oh so pretty and reasonable in their parts
There are a lot of subjects that they cover in this movie, and they do it quite well without being too moralistic, which it could easily have been. This was all that I expected it be, it was okay, nicely done. It didn't grab me in the way perhaps Hunger Games did with its seething brutality, but it is still worth checking out.
** Star rating
Movies of a similar vibe would be Divergent or as previously mentioned, The Hunger Games, of which the next in the franchise is due soon.
